


she said she collects pieces of sky

by Becks_Rylynn



Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, BAMF Lydia Martin, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dean-Centric, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Language, Lydia-centric, M/M, Memory Alteration, Non-Explicit Sex, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Protective Dean Winchester, Purgatory, Ruby is an ally not an enemy, Seizures, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:26:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becks_Rylynn/pseuds/Becks_Rylynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's pretty okay with admitting that he'll do whatever she asks him to do whenever she asks him to do it, at this point.</p>
<p>OR: The one where Dean Winchester and Lydia Martin attempt to fix themselves and each other in the midst of Purgatory, PTSD, amnesia, and immeasurable loneliness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a long, cold lonely winter

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. Here we go, guys. My last epic story. 
> 
> The whole story behind this piece of fiction is pretty strange: I was re-watching season two of Teen Wolf and thinking about how unfair it was that nobody ever told Lydia anything and how I hated that the writers never let her be badass. And then I re-watched The Slice Girls episode of Supernatural. And basically, I just went, ''well, if Supernatural isn't going to give Dean a kid and Teen Wolf isn't going to let Lydia save herself, then I guess I better do it myself.'' So I did. This was supposed to be a oneshot. It is not a oneshot. Somehow, it morphed into a big beast of a fic, and honestly... I can't remember the last time I had this much fun writing a story, so... That definitely had something to do with why I didn't give up on it.
> 
> Just a few quick notes:
> 
> \- This story is not at all in chronological order. It's an upside down, sideways, backwards, all different directions story.
> 
> \- This story is focused around Lydia and Dean and will alternate between Lydia POV and Dean POV.
> 
> \- All other Teen Wolf characters will not be appearing for awhile but they WILL be appearing eventually. They're important to the story as well, just not right now.
> 
> \- I started this story just before season three of Teen Wolf started, which means a lot of the events in season three have been disregarded.
> 
> \- This is NOT a Dean/Lydia romance fic.

.

.

 .

 _little darling_  
 _it's been a long, cold lonely winter_  
 _little darling_  
 _it seems like years since it's been here_   
**\- the beatles; here comes the sun**

.

.

.

She wakes to an unnerving silence and cold air on her skin.

Her head feels full and empty all at the same time. There is a throbbing ache behind her eyes, one that goes all the way through her body, and she feels stiff and sore everywhere. Her stomach is rolling and she can feel her body shaking, trembling in the cold, the tips of her fingers numb and tingling. She moans and tries to move, but she doesn't dare open her eyes. The ground under her is cold and damp. The scent of dirt overpowers her senses. It's all she can smell.

''Ssshh, sweetheart,'' the shock of warm hands on her skin startles her into opening her eyes. ''Take it easy,'' the voice advises her as she struggles to clear her blurry vision. It's a deep voice, low and gravelly, like a smoker's, and it is undoubtedly a man's voice. ''Go slow,'' the voice is also warm, soft in a way that is not traditionally soft, not sweet but safe, almost but not quite comforting. Not quite because there is also an edge to the voice, a spark of danger, of impatience. The warm hands feel nice against her freezing skin but they are also calloused and rough and she can smell blood on them.

Her vision clears while the strong hands are helping her to sit, and when she gets a look at him, her heart thuds noisily against her ribcage and something akin to a scream threatens to erupt out of her throat. Maybe this is wrong, maybe it's judgmental, but he does not look like a giant gentle teddy bear of a man. He is not what she was expecting. She doesn't know what she had been expecting, to be honest.

He is bloody and dirty, covered from head to toe in grime and filth. It's smudged under his eyes and caked under his fingernails. His clothes are ripped and stained with blood. His green eyes are determined and hard edged. He smiles at her, just enough to show off his pearly white teeth that stand in stark contrast to the dirt on his face. She can't decide if he's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen or the most terrifying. ''Hey,'' he holds up his hands when she jerks away from him. ''I'm not gonna hurt you, I promise.'' He draws away from her, going very slowly, seemingly for her benefit, and rises to his feet. He glances behind him briefly, and that's when she notices the two other men standing behind him, far enough away to make her feel safe, she imagines. They are not any less intimidating.

The first man, the one with the warm hands and white teeth, says, ''You're sure?''

A man in a dirty overcoat nods. ''Yes,'' he says, his voice even lower. ''She's just a girl. She's human.''

She shivers and wonders what else could she be?

Warm Hands sighs and closes his eyes, as if he was hoping she wasn't _just a girl_. ''Okay,'' his voice is tight. ''Okay, all right.'' He turns back to her and gives her an unconvincing smile. ''Can I just...?'' He offers her his hand. ''Let's get you up.'' She hesitates, but ultimately takes his hand and allows him to pull her gently to her unsteady legs. It's only when she's standing that she realizes how tall he is. Or rather, how short she is. She barely comes up to his chest. He doesn't waste a moment, instantly stripping himself of his jacket and carefully draping it around her shoulders. He seems so scared that she'll break. She looks at all three of them. They all seem so utterly terrified of her.

The jacket stinks like sweat and blood, and it's ripped and tattered probably beyond repair, but she accepts it gratefully and pulls it tight around her skinny frame. She wiggles her toes in the mud and leaves. She is suddenly all too aware that she is only wearing a tank top and pajama bottoms with no shoes and most unfortunately, no bra.

Warm Hands edges towards her hesitantly. Quietly, calmly, he asks, ''What's your name, honey?'' and that's when it all comes flooding back to her.

She remembers waking up in the darkness, surrounded by trees and silence. She remembers running through mud and twigs, her heart thundering in her chest, blood roaring in her ears, until her lungs burned and her feet ached. She remembers being so scared she couldn't see straight. But most of all, she remembers what she does _not_ remember. She knows her name. She knows that she is sixteen years old. That is _all_ she knows. Everything else is a blank slate. She wants to cry. She doesn't. Instead, she stands tall and she says, voice wavering only a little, ''My name is Lydia Martin.''

''Well, Lydia Martin,'' says the man, ''I'm Dean Winchester.'' He pauses and gives her another pained, fake smile, and there's this strange look in his eyes. He's petrified. Not _of_ her, she realizes with a start. _For_ her. She looks around the forest and breathes in the damp air. ''Welcome to Purgatory.''

That's it. That's how it starts.

.

.

.

She has good days and bad.

On the good days, she'll hunker down in a corner of their newly acquired batcave and plow through a pile of books, taking notes, making _file folders_ , and ordering them to do the same. Or she'll boss him around the grocery store, strutting ahead of him with a way too long list held in between her perfectly manicured nails, picking out only the expensive organic crap and smacking his hands away from chocolate bars and pre-made pie, telling him that she'll help him bake a kickass pie but only if he promises to have a salad for dinner twice a week. She'll make him take her shopping at boutiques downtown, or she'll play Scrabble with Sam and always win, or she'll demand that they go see Kevin, because - and this is not something he likes to think about for too long- she _likes_ Kevin and she worries about him incessantly.

On the bad days, she won't do any of those things. She'll throw tantrums instead. She'll get violent. She'll cry. She'll sleep a lot. Her wide eyes will brim with fear at the sight of him, because she won't remember him or how greatly he cares for her. She won't remember Purgatory, Benny, Cas, Sam, Charlie, or Kevin. She won't remember that Dean sits on the floor outside her bedroom sometimes, just in case, because there are some parts of Purgatory that will never leave. And when she wakes up and remembers - remembers that she is Lydia Martin, she is seventeen, and Dean and Sam Winchester are _looking after her_ \- she'll look at the scratches she's made on his face, or Sam's arms, and she'll burst into tears.

The first few days after Purgatory were bad days. Not just for her. She spent them huddled in a fetal position in the bathroom of a cheap motel. He spent them trying to re-train himself to exist in a world he had almost forgotten about.

The shock of everything - the brightly lit world, the civilians, the clean pavement, the running water, the new clothes - sends her spiraling and spinning away and all of the conflicting emotions trigger one hell of a memory lapse. For two days, she goes back and forth between bursts of violence (because he's the big scary unfamiliar man who has her locked in a strange motel room in the middle of nowhere, and she is a tiny five foot three teenage girl) and a catatonic state (because, he imagines, that must be easier).

She has a hard time keeping solid food down, body so used to Purgatory and the suppressed hunger, and she sleeps a lot, curled up under the covers. He sits on the floor and doesn't sleep. He keeps her safe. He blatantly ignores the way his hands shake, the way his muscles scream at him to be on alert, or the way he obsessively counts her every breath.

_Hypervigilance._

It's called hypervigilance.

It's a common symptom in people suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

.

.

.

Most of the good days involve music in some way or another.

Lydia cannot remember any of the details of her life, nor - apparently - can the rest of the world. She can't remember her favourite color, her address, where she's from, her mother's name, nothing. One of the things that bothers her the most about this is that she doesn't know what kind of music she likes. Perhaps that sounds trivial, but she's a detail oriented girl. That is not something she needs to remember. She is also endlessly determined, so she makes it her life's mission to discover where her taste in music lies.

Much to Dean's utter dismay, she quickly dismisses Black Sabbath and AC/DC as ''Dad music'' and declares that Metallica is ''only okay.'' But she also shoots down Sam's suggestions of Coldplay and Jason Manns with a scrunched up nose and a dismissive frown, so at least she's an equal opportunity soul crusher. She does seem to genuinely enjoy Zeppelin and the Beatles, but as it is, most of her enjoyment seems to come from - sigh - top forty music.

She _is_ a seventeen year old girl, he has to remind himself. It's not like this should be breaking news.

It's still a little disappointing. If only because it means he's stuck listening to Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj.

But then he comes home one day with a bag of Chinese food that he doesn't even like and three of Lydia's dresses fresh from the dry cleaner's (he's pretty okay with admitting that he'll do whatever she asks him to whenever she asks him to do it, at this point), and finds Lydia trying to coax Sam to dance with her while some peppy pop song blares ( _gold roads leave Kansas, scarecrow loves dances, live it up, you're growing up, parties in the wilderness of life_ ) over the sound of his half hearted protests. They're both smiling. They're both happy.

Dean stops in his tracks. He breathes. He decides that anything that puts smiles like that on his kids' faces can't be that bad. And then he cuts in between them and steals her away, twirling her around until all he can hear is the sound of her boisterous, joyful laughter.

.

.

.

She has good days and bad.

On the good days, she will remember her name and that she has people here who love her. On the bad days, she will not.

Dean lives for the good days.

.

.

.

Whatever has been done to Ms. Lydia Martin is not medical. It's not natural. Somebody has stolen her, erased her, wiped her mind clean. Like a supernatural lobotomy. Dean has been told this over and over by countless sources - psychics, healers, witches, a crossroads demon or two. They all say the same thing. _I can't help you, I don't have that kind of power, this is bigger than me, this is bigger than you._

Shortly after they get back from Purgatory, before Cas comes home, before the Men of Letters bunker, while he and Sam are not talking about the things they should be talking about and everything is still fresh and painful, Dean bundles Lydia up, leaves a note for Sam, and he goes to New Orleans. It's not a terribly well thought out plan, and it's definitely not the smartest plan in the world because...

Well...

Because hunters are not permitted in New Orleans. Haven't been since '07. It is a safe haven for supernatural critters of all shapes and sizes. It's where you go if you're a Wild Thing seeking asylum. No hunters allowed. If there's a problem, it's dealt with in house.

...She has never admitted it out loud, but Dean has a very hard time believing that Ruby didn't have anything to do with it.

They make it farther than he thought they would, in any case. Just outside of city limits, the Impala comes to a stop in the middle of the road. It just dies. He releases a breath and closes his eyes, choosing to rest his forehead on the steeling wheel and curse in his head instead of letting loose a stream of expletives and hitting the steering wheel. Beside him, arms folded, Lydia clicks her tongue and shakes her head. ''I told you so,'' she says decisively.

Dean looks up.

And there she is. Just like old times.

Ruby is standing in front of the car. Her arms are crossed, she's got one leg jutted out in a supermodel pose, and there is a light breeze ruffling her otherwise perfectly coiffed hair. It's her signature stance. The Ruby pose. If it weren't for the subtle changes, he would think it was still 2008. She's smiling at him, eyebrows raised, laughter making her eyes twinkle in the sunshine. A real smile, too. Not a smirk. Her hair has darkened from blond to a softer golden color and it falls in waves down her back. She's wearing a plaid flannel shirt that he isn't even going to pretend doesn't belong to him over her jeans instead of her previous wardrobe of black t-shirts and leather jackets.

She looks softer somehow.

Dean would like to think that it's because of him, or maybe because of Sam, but it's not. It's Cas. It's always Cas for her. He understands that better than anyone.

At the sight of Ruby, Lydia narrows her eyes and huffs. ''Great,'' she sneers. ''Do you see what you've done, Dean? Now we're stuck with _her_.'' Lydia does not like Ruby. Honestly, Dean once thought that Lydia and Ruby would've gotten along like gang busters because, let's be real here, they are basically the same person. But nope. As it is, Lydia does not like Ruby one bit and Ruby seems completely indifferent to Lydia. It's probably because they're so alike. Either that or it's jealousy, and he's really hoping it's not that because he'd have no clue how to broach that subject.

With a stern warning of, ''Be nice,'' he climbs out of the car and into the chilly morning air. The smile remains firmly painted on Ruby's face. He attempts seduction and smiles back. ''Morning, gorgeous,'' he drawls.

Lydia pulls a face. ''Ugh, gross.''

Ruby laughs, looking thoroughly amused. ''Do you really think your sex voice is going to change anything?''

''Again,'' Lydia says, ''I say: _gross._ How do you even know what his sex voice - '' she shudders in disgust, which, _hey_ , offense '' - sounds like?''

Ruby's smile widens enough to show off her teeth. ''So smart, so feisty, and yet so naive. You're adorable, kid.''

Lydia sticks her nose up in the air and flicks red hair over her shoulder. '' _Don't_ call me kid.''

''Sure thing, kid.''

Dean clears his throat. ''How'd you know we were here?''

Ruby laughs again, this time there's a sharper edge to it, and begins to slink over to Dean. ''Now, babe, you know I make it my business to know where you are at all times.'' Her fingers dance up his chest and she peers up at him through her eyelashes. He tenses and can't decide if he wants to lean into it or back away from her. A frequent problem when it comes to Ruby. ''For booty call purposes,'' she tacks on with a wink.

Lydia gags. ''Oh my god. I'm gonna throw up. I am literally going to vomit all over.''

It kind of kills the moment. It kills the moment with fire. Ruby rolls her eyes and steps away from Dean, but doesn't bother with a withering glare or a clever retort. ''Sam called me,'' she says. Her face sours, turns serious, all of the playfulness and laughter draining right out of her. ''What are you doing, Dean?''

He smirks easily. Stuffs his hands into his pockets. ''Applying for a tourist visa.''

She shakes her head. ''That's not a good idea.''

''Ruby - ''

''It's not safe here for you,'' she warns. She looks over at Lydia. ''It's not safe here for _her_.''

''Lucky for you,'' a brand new voice chimes in, ''Little Miss Sunshine doesn't get to dictate shit when it comes to this town.''

All eyes go to the newcomer. She is a tall, pretty woman, mid to late twenties, with an olive complexion and a cunning smirk. She's wearing a tank top and a pair of short shorts, an odd outfit given how cold it is. She is sitting perched on the hood of the Impala, one leg thrown over the other, and her eyes are only on Dean. He forgets all about subtlety and simply yanks Lydia behind him by her wrist, ignoring her startled gasp.

Ruby's entire demeanor changes at the sight of the mysterious woman. Her back goes ramrod straight and her face twists into a mean looking glower, pupils dilating until only black remains. ''Fuck off and die, Sheridan.''

''Excuse me,'' Sheridan snaps her attention from Dean to Ruby. ''I'm having a private conversation with a client.'' She slips off the Impala and eyes Dean slowly. ''Nasty attitude on that one,'' she says. That's when she spots Lydia. Her lips curl back into a disturbingly lethal looking grin. She looks Lydia up and down _hungrily_. ''Mmm.'' She licks her lips. ''Little Red,'' she purrs, ''don't you look good enough to eat.'' Her eyes flash and she snaps her teeth, letting a momentary slip of fangs show. Ah, right. That explains things, then.

Lydia does not cower behind Dean. She tries to move out from behind him and lunge, but he spreads his arms out wide and traps her behind him. ''You're a - ''

''Vampire,'' Sheridan cuts her off. ''Yes, sweetie. Sure am. I'm also your only hope of getting into New Orleans.''

''You the toll booth operator?'' Dean mocks. ''Head of tourism?''

''I'm border patrol, asshole,'' is the deadpan he gets in response. ''You should know, Mr. Winchester, there is a way to get you a temporary pass.'' She smiles again, perfectly pleasant and professional, as she circles him like he's her prey. ''But there's an entry fee.'' She comes to a stop and locks eyes with him. ''And it's a steep one,'' she moves her eyes back over to Lydia. ''Let's talk.''

''Oh, for the love of...'' Before she can attack, before Lydia can duck under his arm and jump on her, there is a rush of movement, a flurry of blond hair, and then Ruby has Sheridan pinned back against the hood of the Impala with her knife pressed against the brunette's neck and her fist wrist deep in Sheridan's chest. Sheridan is gasping pathetically in pain, blood bubbling from her lips. ''Tell me again,'' Ruby hisses, ''that I have no power here.''

Lydia has stopped struggling, but all Dean can think to say is, ''Watch the car.''

''Sorry.'' Ruby pulls Sheridan up, yanks her hand out of her chest, and throws her down to the ground, pressing her foot against the vampire's neck, stiletto heel cutting into her flesh. ''You want to talk?'' Ruby asks, voice perfectly even and calm. ''Let's talk. More specifically, let's talk about how if you drink even a drop of their blood, I will cut off your head, display it in the middle of Bourbon Street and tell everyone you were a traitor. Now. Let's talk about waiving the entry fee.''

.

.

.

''Keep your heads down, don't talk to anyone, don't linger anywhere for too long, and you both stay with me at all times.'' There is blood staining Ruby's right sleeve and she has stolen Dean's sunglasses from the car and placed them over her own eyes. She is walking briskly down Bourbon Street, gracefully avoiding crashing into anyone, while Dean seems to be bumping into everyone and Lydia is struggling just to keep up with them. ''Higher ranking demons can't get into New Orleans, so don't worry about Crowley.''

''Aww,'' Lydia calls out, sarcasm lacing her tone, ''does that mean you're a lowly chum on the food chain?''

It doesn't even faze Ruby. ''For now, yeah. That's what happens when people like me choose angels and Winchester idiots over the hierarchy.''

''People like you?'' Lydia retorts. _''People?''_

''Yes, Lydia,'' Ruby says, '' _people_. And that reminds me,'' she sends them both a warning look. ''You two should keep your bigotry to yourself while you're here. I've accepted your flaws because I like your penis,'' she points at Dean, ''and I like your determination,'' she points to Lydia, ''but not everybody thinks bitchiness is adorable and not everybody gets to have shower sex with Dean Winchester, which means not everybody is as forgiving as I am.''

Dean and Lydia share a look.

''Feel free to ignore any of these rules if they make you uncomfortable,'' Ruby states lazily, sounding _this close_ to bored. ''Because I'm not your damn keeper, and because in all honestly, I'm not that invested in this, but be aware that if you do, you'll probably be murdered horribly by the angry cousin of some poor sap you've gutted at some point in the past.''

''You know,'' Dean pauses to apologize to yet another person he's run into and then reaches behind him to grab Lydia's hand. Ruby is walking like a woman on a mission and Lydia seems entranced by everything New Orleans, often hanging back to stare into a window or smell the roses, which just does not work for him right now. They came here to help her. He's not going to lose track of her in a city full of people who apparently don't like him all that much. ''I remember that when you were lurking around the hospital with Meg and Cas, you said you were actually going to try and be a nicer person. A nicer person with _tact_.''

''I did,'' Ruby agrees. ''But then you and Cas rode an exploding Dick to Purgatory and Sam hit a dog, so there wasn't really any reason to be anything but a ruthless, kamikaze woman. At least I get shit done this way. Kindness will get you nowhere.''

''Um,'' says Lydia. ''I don't think - ''

''Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown,'' Dean quips.

Lydia wrinkles her nose. ''What?''

He sighs. ''We're going to watch a lot of movies after this, okay?''

Ruby makes a sudden turn down a side street and Dean stops in his tracks, which causes Lydia to smash her face into his shoulder with a startled shriek. She harrumphs and pulls her hand out of his grasp to fix her hair and smooth down her dress. She frowns at him, as if it's his fault, fixes her own sunglasses over her eyes and spins on her heel to follow after Ruby. Dean rolls his eyes heavenwards and shakes his head. Teenagers, man. He follows after the girls. It's not an alley exactly, it's almost smaller than an alley, and the entrance is relatively hidden away from the rest of the street. The noise of cheerful Bourbon Street diminishes slightly as he walks farther down the street. He feels weirdly like he's stepped into some weird ass Harry Potter shit.

About halfway down the road, Ruby is lounging comfortably against the brick wall, waiting for them to catch up with her. She pushes Dean's sunglasses up onto her head and licks her dry lips. ''There you go,'' she says, and nods at the shop in front of her. ''We're here.''

Dean and Lydia turn their attention to the shop. There is a single black door in the middle of the brick wall and a single tiny grimy window. There is a flickering neon light in the window that says open and another neon arrow pointing to the handmade sign that reads, in faded block letters, _Miss Tallulah's Psychic Predictions_. There is a poorly drawn picture of a crystal ball and a tarot card next to the words.

''Oh, for fuck's sake,'' Dean pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. ''You're yankin' my chain.''

''She's the best,'' says Ruby.

Lydia looks less than impressed. Actually, scratch that. That's too nice. She looks openly judgmental. ''You're joking.''

''You're the one without a past, kid,'' Ruby shrugs. ''If I were you, I'd give it a shot.''

''Well, you're not me,'' Lydia scowls.

''And thank God for that.'' Ruby disappears into the shop before Dean has a chance to tell her to knock it off, leaving behind a very pissed off looking teenage girl who is quite clearly trying to cover up her fear with frustration.

Lydia narrows her eyes and stares at Dean.

He grimaces. ''Okay, so, she's not a Georgia Peach.''

She glares. ''This is a waste of time,'' she declares. ''I don't need some two-bit psychic telling me I'm unfixable.''

''You don't know that's what she's going to say,'' he tries to placate.

''I do,'' she hisses. ''I do know that's what she's going to say, Dean, because that's what they all say.'' Her eyes cloud over and she looks scared all of a sudden. She looks tired. ''We have been to fucking every psychic or witch or faith healer in Kansas, in Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, and they all say the same goddamn thing. They don't know what's been done to me and they don't know how to fix me. What makes you think Tallulah Bankhead or whatever is going to be any different?''

''What makes you think she won't be?''

''Logic,'' she monotones. ''You should try it sometime.''

''Lydia,'' he smiles softly and brings his hands to her shoulders. ''Honey. This is New Orleans. Home of witchcraft and voodoo and the real life Hogwarts.''

''Really?''

''No. But if anyone can help you, it's someone here. This is the most powerful city in America.''

''Is it really?''

''I dunno. Maybe?''

She huffs impatiently.

''And if Ruby says Miss Tallulah is the best, then she's probably the best.''

She still looks hesitant. She still looks _afraid_. She stares at the door for a moment and he can practically see the gears turning in her head. Slowly, _slowly_ , the fear begins to evaporate. Her body slackens, relaxes, and he watches the steel doors close, shutting out the fear and the pain, replaced only by bravery. Whether it is false bravado or not remains to be seen, not that it matters. Faking it, Dean has learned, is sometimes a nifty little life skill. She may not remember who she is, but he has a feeling that Lydia Martin has always been an incredibly brave girl. Her parents must have been proud of her. She squares her shoulders, balls her hands into fists, and strolls forwards, right into the shop.

He watches her go.

.

.

.

Miss Tallulah is not what he was expecting. When he enters the shop, Ruby is leaning against the entry way, gnawing on her thumbnail, and Lydia is being looked over by... Miss Tallulah? No, but seriously. Not at all what Dean was expecting.

She is a slim, dark skinned woman, wearing a sleek black dress and sky high heels. She's younger than he thought she would be, only about early to mid thirties. She's...quite beautiful, actually. And she's looking over Lydia like a worried mother. Like she _knows_ the girl.

''Stop staring, Dean,'' Ruby murmurs. ''It's unbecoming.'' She slips his sunglasses off her head and hooks them onto his shirt. Her hand creeps up to his neck, then his face, and then, quite abruptly, she gives him a shove. He stumbles farther into the room and Miss Tallulah looks up from Lydia.

For a moment, all she does is blink at him, but then she smiles. It's a warm smile, welcoming and gentle, still somehow cocky, and something about it... Something about it reminds him of his mother. ''Dean Winchester,'' she greets. She makes her way over to him slowly, heels clicking on the hardwood floor. ''The man, the myth, the legend.'' She grins in a way that lights up her pretty eyes. ''It's nice to finally meet you. I have to admit,'' she gives him a nice, long look. ''You're not what I was expecting. You're much more...'' She tilts her head to the side. ''Handsome.''

''You're not exactly what I was expecting either.''

''Oh, I know,'' she nods. ''You were expecting Miss Tallulah. Some old, haggard woman wearing too much jewelry who speaks in riddles. Sorry to disappoint. My name is Julia,'' she holds out her hand. ''Miss Tallulah is for the tourists.''

''Yeah,'' he takes her hand. ''Trust me, definitely not a disappointment.''

Ruby and Lydia both roll their eyes at exactly the same time and let out a collective scoff.

''Well, thank you,'' Julia laughs. ''You're a flirt. That,'' she pats Dean on the chest, ''I was expecting.'' She looks over his shoulder at Ruby. ''I hear stories. Now. I hear you need help.'' She steps back, away from Dean and back over to Lydia, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. ''Should we get started?''

Julia's shop is small and cramped and much too warm. The lighting is dim, only consisting of a couple lamps, a few flickering candles, and the light streaming in through the windows. The main room, a small foyer, has a table with a crystal ball and a deck of tarot cards. There's a miniscule kitchenette in the back, a bathroom door to the left, and a small living room off to the side. It's full of cushions and blankets with a couch pushed up against the wall. Right after the introductions, Julia ushers Lydia into the living room, chatting away with the girl about her shoes in a clear attempt to calm her frayed nerves.

Dean hangs back, carefully surveying the room. Just in case. ''You coming?'' He asks Ruby.

She hasn't budged from her spot leaning against the wall. She looks up at him, expression unreadable. ''Can't,'' she says, and doesn't bother to elaborate.

''Demons may be welcome in New Orleans,'' Julia says, looping her arm through Dean's and pulling him into the living room. ''But they're not welcome here. I've taken precautions.'' She throws a look over her shoulder. ''No offense.''

''None taken,'' Ruby shrugs.

Dean is not sure why the look shared between Ruby and Julia makes him so nervous. He's also not sure what Julia is exactly, and it's putting him on edge. She's not a demon or a vampire, she doesn't seem like a witch, but she's not simply a mere psychic either. She is something else entirely. That is precisely why he is not willing, at all, to put his complete faith in her. Ruby recommended or not. And when she sits him down on the couch next to Lydia and lets them know just how much she knows about them, it only serves to make him that much more suspicious.

Julia knows exactly who they are and what they're here for. She knows Lydia wants to know who she is and where she came from, she knows nobody else has been able to help them, and she knows fucking everything about Dean.

''I can help you,'' she says, promises. ''As a favor to Ruby.'' She slings a strange looking smirk in the blonde's direction. ''And as a thank you.''

''A thank you,'' Dean echoes. ''For what?''

Julia's smile is slow and all knowing. It cuts right down to the bone. ''For saving the world, of course. You think I don't know all about the adventures you've been on, Dean?''

He isn't sure how to take that. Fuck, though, he isn't sure how to take any of this. This day has been so ridiculous and outlandish, and he's so goddamn desperate when it comes to this girl and - Jesus. He's been ignoring phone calls from Sam all day long. It's just been a really long day.

Julia, unsurprisingly, knows all of this.

She explains to Lydia, choosing her words carefully, that she believes someone has put a wall up in Lydia's mind and to tear it down, she has to enter into her subconscious. That would be where Dean protests very loudly. He has been through this before, he has been in people's head, it's not pretty. He doesn't want people sticking their noses in Lydia's head. It's too dangerous, he argues. She could get hurt.

Lydia agrees without a moment of hesitation.

Suddenly, Dean regrets everything.

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.

The worst part is when the doors shut.

Dean has been told over and over again what is going to happen. He makes Julia tell him everything she's going to be doing, right down to the very minor details, and he still doesn't feel comfortable. Lydia is going to be put to sleep - ''she'll be comfortable, don't worry, it's perfectly safe'' - and then Julia will put herself in a trance like state and try to get past the wall. Like African Dream Root only more concentrated and more controlled. Lydia seems totally at ease with the whole sha-bang. For awhile. She goes along with everything, calm and confident. ...And then Julia makes the mistake of saying that Dean has to leave the room.

Lydia does not appreciate that one bit. She's a strong girl, she really is - she's probably stronger than he is - but it's understandable that she'd be a little wary about some obviously less than human woman putting her to sleep with some magic tea and wandering around in her mind. He stays with her until she falls asleep, absently brushing hair out of her eyes and making sure she's comfortable, trying to pretend that he's not freaking out. It happens quite quickly after she drinks the aforementioned magic herb concoction, and then Dean gets kicked out into the foyer.

Where he proceeds to annoy the fuck out of Ruby for the next hour.

It doesn't take her long to get peeved. ''Shit,'' she says from her spot seated on the floor, after about twenty minutes of sporadic pacing and grumbling. ''You need to calm down.''

''Shut up, Ruby.''

''Okay, I realize you're having some sort of overprotective big bro panic attack, but there's no excuse for rudeness.''

''Well, excuse me if I'm a little stressed out because some woman is poking around in my kid's cranium!''

Ruby looks up from her game of Angry Birds. ''...Do you realize what you just said?''

His mouth dries up. Yes, he realizes what he said. But now is not the time to deal with that particular issue. ''I should go in there. Just... Check on her.''

''Don't you dare.''

''I can't just sit here and do nothing,'' he insists, through gritted teeth. He comes to a stop in the middle of the room and stares at the closed living room doors, willing them to slide open.

'' 'Kay,'' she slips her phone into her pocket and pushes herself up onto her knees. ''Then do me.''

He rolls his eyes. ''Ruby.''

''What? Not like it would be the first time.''

''No.''

She scoffs and sits back down. Says, ''You used to be way more fun.'' He shakes his head and sends her a momentary glance, before looking away. When he eventually does look back at her, she's on her feet, grinning from ear to ear. ''So, you wanna hear my theory about your new girl?''

''Not particularly.''

She ignores him. ''I think there's some straight up Buffy and Dawn realness going on here.''

He blinks. Blinks again. ''You think she's a mystical ball of energy meant to open a portal to another world?''

''I think she was placed with you,'' she corrects. ''I think she was placed with you for a reason.'' She leans her arm up against the invisible barrier keeping her in place. ''For safe keeping.''

''She's not an object.''

She shrugs. ''Whatever,'' she flicks a piece of lint off of _his_ shirt. ''If I'm right, you owe me fries. Actually, scratch that. If I'm right, you owe me a dinner. A nice one. At a place with tablecloths that aren't plastic. I'd kill for a decent steak.''

He works his jaw silently and rubs a hand over the bristly stubble on his face. He doesn't turn her down. Hell - he looks at her with careful eyes - it might not be a bad idea to get a meal in her. Or two. She's skinner than ever these days, and not because she's wearing a man's oversized shirt. He clears his throat. He tries to focus all of his attention on Ruby and not whatever Julia is doing to Lydia in the other room. ''You know, you've lost weight,'' he comments needlessly.

''So buy me dinner,'' she says flippantly.

He hums thoughtfully. ''Haven't seen much of you lately.''

''Aww,'' she smirks, ''you miss me, Winchester?''

''I'm being serious here, Rubes. You're okay, right?'' He gives her a look. ''You'd tell us... If you were in trouble.''

He's honestly not trying to provoke some sort of reaction out of her. He just _likes_ her. She's been a part of his life for seven years now. He... He cares about her. Despite everything. She goes still. For a split second, there's a deer in headlights look in her eyes, but it is quickly replaced by a sneer. Her go to _fuck off_ expression. ''Dean Winchester,'' she says, ''always relegated to the caretaker in the background of the story.'' She folds her arms. ''Parent the kid, sweetheart, but don't parent me.''

He holds up his hands, palms up. ''I'm just sayin'.'' Reluctantly, he tears himself away from the doors and moves over to Ruby. ''You've been working yourself ragged,'' he says. ''Do you think I don't know why?''

She squirms. ''None of your fucking business.'' She has to adjust her position as he gets closer and closer, pulling herself up to her full height and tilting her head back slightly to meet his eyes.

''You won't find it,'' he warns her quietly, moving closer still.

''Find what?'' She is trying a little too hard to look nonchalant.

''A way to get him out.''

Her breath audibly catches. She looks pale in the dim glow of light. She barely allows herself to falter, bouncing back with a cruel, taunting smile. ''I wouldn't have to find a way to get him out,'' her voice is cold and hard, ''if you hadn't failed to bring him home in the first place.''

He feels it physically. It's like a gunshot wound. It's searing pain, it's a dull ache that turns into an awful pounding, pulsating pain, it's the world's worst nausea. It's _guilt_. It's guilt because she's right. He lumbers towards her, a coiled bundle of nerves and misery. Her back hits the door with a thud and he slams his hands up against the wall on either side of her head.

It only serves to annoy her more. ''You're the one who failed him,'' she spits out at him. ''I never did. _You're_ the one who left him behind. I never have. I never will. You don't deserve - ''

Seven years. Seven years and he really only knows one way to make her stop. She doesn't seem at all surprised when he kisses her, but she doesn't exactly welcome it either, if the way she bites down on his lip harshly is anything to go by. But she still kisses him back. It's not a romantic kiss. It's not even a good kiss, really. It's harsh and frantic, their teeth clack together and she pulls at his hair while he leaves finger shaped bruises on her waist. He comes to his senses first, pulling away from her abruptly and stumbling back, wiping at his lips. She chuckles humorlessly, remaining pressed up against the door. She swipes her thumb over her swollen lips. He turns away from her, angling his body in the opposite direction. He tries his best to catch his breath. There is a moment of tense silence between the two of them. He wants to apologize, but he can't force the words out.

He asks, ''Do you love him?'' It's out before he can stop it, tumbling from his lips in a hoarse, dry croak. He can't look her in the eye.

She doesn't answer right away, because it's not that easy to answer, he knows, and when she finally does, it's not the answer he had been hoping for. ''Do you?''

He sucks in a breath that won't reach his lungs.

''It wouldn't be wrong,'' she goes on. ''If you did. It wouldn't make you bad.'' Her voice softens and she sounds sympathetic, such an odd thing to hear from her. So out of character. ''He's easy to love.''

He straightens his back, doesn't look at her, and walks away. Now is not the time for this. Now is not the time for any of this.

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.

.

Sometime later, just before Julia comes out, Ruby finds yet another way to stick a knife in him. He is sitting at the table playing with the tarot cards like he knows what he's doing. She is sitting back on the floor with her back against the door, staring at him. They haven't talked since their ill-fated kiss, and this is merely her trying to stir the pot. This is not an important moment.

But it will be.

''Dean,'' she says his name quietly, not particularly viciously, just curiously. ''Can I ask you a question?''

He flips over a card. The magician. ''You just did.'' He flips over another. Queen of cups. He swallows.

Ruby ignores him, again. ''What happens when she remembers?''

His hands falter.

''If she wants to go back to her old life,'' she adds. ''If she wants to leave you. Would you be able to let her go?'' Her voice has taken on that slow, raspy quality that always accompanies a punch or an insult. Or subtle manipulation. Something that breaks you. She's always been great at breaking people. ''You've already lost one daughter,'' she murmurs. ''Could you lose another?''

He flinches the places the deck of cards down slowly. ''She's not my daughter,'' he points out.

''Your head knows this,'' she nods. ''Does your heart?''

He looks up and clenches his jaw.

She looks perfectly calm, sitting back against the door. She would almost look smug, if it weren't for the barely there sorrow and hurt in her eyes. Oh, you've got to be kidding. This is still about what she's lost. This is about not feeling it all by herself. ''I heard what Fiona Delphine said to you, you know,'' she drawls. ''Every little bit. Look me in the eyes, Dean,'' her lips twist, ''and tell me _this_ ,'' she gestures to the living room doors vaguely, ''isn't it about Emma.''

''Don't,'' it's a growl. It's a warning. He holds up one finger and looks right at her. '' _Don't_.''

She looks pleased that she has gotten such a reaction out of him. And then the doors open. Dean's on his feet so fast he nearly sends the chair toppling to the ground. Ruby is more elegant, rising to her feet gracefully. The look on Julia's face does not inspire confidence. She looks absolutely, one hundred percent petrified. She's skittish, wringing her hands and avoiding their gazes, and she does not look well. She's sweating, strands of her hair plastered to her forehead, she's shaky on her feet, holding onto the wall for support, and she's breathing heavily.

''Julia,'' Ruby says, looking uncharacteristically worried. ''Are you okay?'' ''What happened?'' Dean automatically reaches out to steady her when she wobbles. ''Is she okay? Is she hurt?'' He cranes his neck to try and look around her. Her fingernails dig into his arms. ''She's okay, right? What did you do to her?''

''I... Um...'' She doesn't answer. She shakes her head and looks confused. ''I...''

''Julia,'' Ruby repeats, urgently. She strains against the barrier. '' _Jules_.''

That's when blood starts to dribble from Julia's nose. A quiet gasp passes through her lips, and then her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses limply against Dean.

.

.

.

 _here comes the sun_  
 _here comes the sun_  
 _and i say_  
 _it's all right_   
**\- the beatles; here comes the sun**

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	2. two hands longing for each other's warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's the thing:
> 
> Lydia knows that Benny is a vampire and Castiel is an angel, and she knows that Dean is supposedly human. But at night, when he stands off to the side in the darkness, cocking his head back to look at the moonless night, so still and so quiet...
> 
> She's not sure she believes he is simply human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Suicide.

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_two feet standing on a principle_   
_two hands longing for each other's warmth_   
_cold smoke seeping out of colder throats_   
_darkness falling, leaves nowhere to go_   
**\- daughter; still**

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In Purgatory, there is no sleep.

There is not much of anything human, really. Purgatory seems to follow the rules of the dead. Your hair and fingernails don't grow, you don't lose or gain weight, you're never hungry, thirsty or tired, there is no need to stop for bathroom breaks, and the ache of sore muscles is nothing more than a dull tingling. The rag tag group of survivors takes advantage of this, trekking through the forestry without stopping.

Lydia feels funny about not ever being tired.

Sometimes, when it gets too dark to see, they'll set up a makeshift camp and wait for the light to come, because the darkness is too unpredictable. Whenever this happens, she'll try to sleep. She never succeeds, but at least she tries. Benny does too sometimes, stretching out beside her on the soft dirt with his hat over his eyes.

Dean and Castiel never try to sleep. They never try to rest. Dean stands, body on high alert, while Castiel watches him, his own body tense and ready to attack if something lunges out of nowhere onto Dean. They're also quiet at night. During the daylight hours, they bicker like an old married couple, but at night, they're silent. They're together at night, always close to one another, bodies always brushing together, and at first, Lydia thinks that it's just because safety is in numbers. But she watches them one night. How Castiel can hardly bring himself to look away from Dean, as if he's trying to carve Dean into his memory forever. How Dean always looks at Castiel when the angel isn't looking, lips parted like he wants to say something but can't find the right words to say it. Castiel looks at Dean like he's never going to see him again. Dean looks at Castiel with a strange sort of urgency and secrets hidden away in his eyes.

There's something so utterly and painstakingly intimate about the way they don't talk.

It's so strange.

Then again, Dean Winchester is a strange man.

Here's the thing:

Lydia knows that Benny is a vampire and Castiel is an angel, and she knows that Dean is supposedly human. But at night, when he stands off to the side in the darkness, cocking his head back to look at the moonless night, so still and so quiet...

She's not sure she believes he is simply human.

Perhaps it is just Purgatory, she reasons. It would make sense. But honestly? Sometimes Dean Winchester seems more animal than human.

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.

.

The first time she meets Kevin Tran, she is in the midst of re-learning how to be a person and Dean barely lets her out of his sight for five minutes at a time. It is just after they've returned from Purgatory and she is still rattled by the mere concept of normal life. She has been very quiet, choosing instead to study everything around her with precise eyes, trying to discern what she likes and what she does not like, what she can do and what she cannot. And then she meets Kevin Tran.

He seems startled by her very presence, stuttering out a greeting and swallowing hard when he sees her. ''She's...'' He looks to Dean and Sam, then back to her. ''You, uh... You're new.''

''Lydia,'' Sam says. ''This is Kevin Tran. He was in Advanced Placement.''

Kevin lets out a nervous chuckle when Lydia arches one perfect eyebrow at that and smiles at him.

''Kevin,'' Dean cuts in. ''This is Lydia Martin. Amnesiac. Brilliant. Master of sass.'' He leans in close to the poor boy. ''Off limits.''

Lydia huffs and rolls her eyes, standing on her tip toes to cuff Dean over the head. ''Don't listen to him,'' she tells Kevin, when they inevitably have a moment alone. ''He's a caveman.''

''You're not a brilliant sass master?'' He asks, refilling his super soaker.

She smiles at him, a devilish little smile, and flutters her eyelashes at him. ''Off limits,'' she says. ''I'm not off limits.''

Kevin stops what he's doing to look up at her with wide eyes. He opens his mouth to say something, then snaps it shut. He looks like he can't decide whether or not she's being serious. Finally, he lets out this cute little laugh and ducks his head down. She's pretty sure he's blushing.

''You're not what I was expecting,'' she admits.

''I know,'' he sighs, hefting the water gun into his arms. ''An AP geek isn't exactly what I think of when I think of Prophet of the Word of God.''

''No, that's not what I mean,'' she shakes her head. ''I just didn't expect you to be this cute.''

He responds to that by accidentally squirting himself in the face with holy water.

...She doesn't think he had been expecting someone like her either.

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A few days later, after his girlfriend has been slaughtered right in front of him, after she has met Crowley, he isn't sleeping and she is just coming off a twenty four hour memory lapse that was spent in a motel room somewhere in Nebraska, curled up on the floor while Dean knelt in front of her trying to get her to _just trust him_. She's exhausted and her muscles ache, but she's afraid to go to sleep. What if she wakes up in the morning and she forgets again? It's a legitimate concern. The last time she went to sleep, she woke up and didn't remember anything.

She sneaks out of the motel room she's sharing with Dean in the middle of the night, leaving him fast asleep in his bed. She thinks about knocking on the door to Kevin and Sam's room, but thinks better of it and ends up heading down to the 24 hour diner that's attached to the motel. She's uncomfortable when she first steps into the diner and sees all the tired people sipping at coffee and eating their burgers. She's always uncomfortable around too many people these days. She's also extremely uncomfortable being alone around people. It's odd. It doesn't feel right. She feels like she should be braver. She is Lydia Martin and she spent a year in Purgatory.

She swallows it down and makes her way farther into the diner. She sticks her hands into the pockets of the baggy sweatshirt she's wearing over her peach colored dress that Dean reluctantly bought her and takes a step towards the counter. That's when she notices Kevin. He's hunkered down in a booth in the back, head down, a notebook open in front of him. She hesitates, but only for a moment, and then she walks over to the booth, confidence surging with every step. She leans both hands on the flat surface and says, bluntly, ''You look like dog shit.''

Kevin looks unamused. He glances up from his notebook for a brief second, just long enough for her to get a look at the shadows under his eyes. ''You're sweet,'' he deadpans.

She flicks her red hair and doesn't apologize. ''Seriously.'' She sits down across from him. ''Why don't you get some sleep?''

He takes a gulp of his coffee and winds up draining the entire cup just to avoid answering the question. It works too, because as soon as his cup his empty a waitress pops out of nowhere, asking if he wants a refill. She turns to Lydia after with a kind, motherly smile. Her uniform is an ugly shade of puce and all Lydia can think is that it does not compliment the woman's complexion. It is not the first time she has automatically, reflexively judged someone's fashion. She judges the fuck out of Dean and Sam every day. Because _plaid_. And flannel. And ripped jeans. Like they're Kurt Cobain worshippers. Internal shudder.

''Can I get you anything, hon?'' The waitress asks.

Lydia says, ''Um.''

''Coffee?'' The waitress prompts. ''Tea? Hot chocolate? Something to eat?''

Lydia contemplates this. ''Do you have any herbal tea?''

All she gets in response is a blank look and a, ''I think we have Earl Grey.''

Lydia sighs. ''Hot chocolate's fine,'' she smiles politely, ''thank you.''

The waitress ambles away and when she's gone, Lydia relaxes back against the booth. She yawns, feeling the tiredness creeping up and trying to drag her down. As much as she hates coffee, perhaps she should have gotten some.

Kevin is still busily scribbling away in his notebook, pen gliding across the paper fluidly, and he does not appear to be in an extremely talkative mood.

To keep herself busy, Lydia grabs one of the menus from behind the napkin dispenser. The plastic is unnervingly sticky. She grimaces and wishes she had some Purell. Her disgust only grows as she reads over the menu. That is a lot of deep fried things and there are way too many items wrapped in bacon. And there's only one salad on the menu. ...It has bacon in it. Lydia does not like bacon. She discovered this in a diner in Montana when it came with her egg white omelette, and when she pushed all of it onto Dean's plate like a petulant child, it was like she had kicked their puppy or something. Sam's mouth fell open and his eyes widened, and Dean was, like, personally offended or something.

''I don't understand the world's obsession with bacon,'' she blurts out, more to herself than to Kevin.

Much to her surprise, he replies, ''You and me both.''

Lydia looks at him with stars in her eyes. ''Really?''

Kevin stops writing. He puts his pen down and looks up at her shyly. ''I think it's kinda gross, to be honest.''

''Me too!'' She nods enthusiastically. ''Dean and Sam acted like it was blasphemy when I said I didn't like it. Even Ruby thought I was out of my mind.''

''You've met Ruby?''

She folds her arms. ''I have.''

He laughs a little. His shoulders relax, some of the tension draining out of him. ''Does she terrify you?''

''She irritates me.''

He doesn't look surprised by any of this. ''Well,'' he straightens and offers her a sweet smile that manages to light the shadows in his eyes. ''Dean and Sam are pretty typical carnivores,'' he shrugs. ''It's go meat or go home.''

''You're not like that?''

''I'm vegan, actually.'' He pauses. Looks down into his coffee. ''Well, I mean, I was. Before... It's sort of hard to keep up with the vegan lifestyle when you're hiding from the King of Hell.''

She clenches her fingers around the menu. ''I think if I said I wanted to go vegan, Dean would think of it as some weird way of acting out.''

''That's exactly what my mom thought,'' he says with a nod. ''When I told her I was going vegan, she looked at me and said, _are you not getting enough attention?''_ He laughs again, a little louder this time. It isn't something she's heard from him a lot during the time she's known him. She likes it. He should laugh more often. She makes a mental note to try and make him laugh more.

''Parents,'' she scoffs.

''Yeah,'' he agrees.

They don't say anything for a long time, because at this moment in time, neither of them has parents. That hurts more than either of them let on.

To quell the sadness and the awkwardness, Lydia looks over at his notebook and sneaks a peek at what he's been working on. She raises her eyebrows. It has nothing to do with any sort of tablet or prophet-ness. It's not angsty poetry or an apology letter to his mother. ''Is that... Are you... Are you doing math?''

''Oh,'' he picks up his pen and toys with the cap. ''Yeah. It's calculus, actually.'' He pushes the notebook away from him. ''It,'' he rubs the back of his neck. ''It relaxes me.''

She doesn't look at him when she steals the notebook away from him. She just focuses on the numbers. It doesn't take long for things to fall in place. It feels familiar. It feels amazing. She steals Kevin's pen right from his hands and effortlessly, seamlessly, solves the calculus problems on the paper. She even corrects something he was slightly off on. Licking her lips, she caps the pen, places it back on the notebook and slides it back to him. He is staring at her with this amazed look in his eyes. It's... _different._

She is used to all of the teddy bears in her life looking at her like she's something special. In Purgatory, Castiel looked at her with this half wary, half fond look in his eyes, and Benny's smiles were always very easy and comfortable around her. Sam is beginning to reluctantly enjoy her company, she can tell. And Dean... Well, okay, so sometimes that big lug of a man looks at her with this awed, quiet kind of glimmer in his eyes, like she's a...a gift, or some other ridiculous notion like that. But the way Kevin is looking at her is different.

It's not something she's used to. Maybe she was once, maybe people used to look at her like that all the time, but it feels like the first time right now and it's... It's definitely something. It definitely makes her feel good.

''Wow,'' says Kevin. ''That was unexpected. And attractive. I guess you can add that to the list of things you know about yourself now.''

She opens her mouth to say something clever, but decides against it. She just _smiles._

They spend the rest of their time in the diner doing math and drinking hot chocolate. Dean has made Lydia watch a lot of movies since they came back from Purgatory, from A Walk to Remember to Animal House, and she's fairly certain that this is not what a date is supposed to be. At least not according to the movies. There's something about it that feels so sweet and so innocent, despite everything else in their lives. So fuck She's All That. She may not remember dating or what qualifies as ''acceptable'' but she has a good time with Kevin. He makes her stop thinking about all of the horrible things. He makes her think about all of the good things. He makes her laugh. She'd like to think she does the same for him. He smiles when he's with her and he shares things with her, things he doesn't necessarily want to talk about with Dean and Sam.

It's just nice. It's nice to know that she is not the only one out there who is this young and this fucked up. It's nice to know there's hope for something sweet and relatively uncomplicated.

Somewhere around four, after she's had so many cups of hot chocolate that she's got a stomach ache, the night ends quite abruptly. With Dean and Sam. Party poopers. Even that somehow feels overwhelmingly normal.

The notebook is almost completely full of science and numbers when the bell above the door rings and then there is a booming, angry voice yelling out a sharp, ''Kids!''

Lydia and Kevin both jump and snap to attention, turning to the two men storming towards them.

Dean is pointing a finger at them, looking all pissed off and growly. Sam just looks...mostly asleep. ''What the fuck?'' Dean snarls. ''We wake up and you two are nowhere to be found? I almost had a friggin' heart attack!''

''You can't leave without telling us where you're going,'' Sam says, far more calmly. ''It's really not a good idea. We thought something had happened to you.''

''Don't be fucking nice to them, Sammy,'' Dean snaps. ''I had legitimate chest pains, you little shits. Get up.'' He is shaking his head at them, hands planted on his hips. He actually does look half flustered and half terrified. He's not even dressed, really, still wearing sweats and a t-shirt. Even Sam looks a little panicked. He's not even wearing shoes. ''Fucking seriously. Get up right now.'' As soon as Lydia and Kevin both haul themselves to their feet, neither of them looking as apologetic as they should be, Dean inserts himself in between them and sends Kevin a withering glare. ''And I don't trust you, _Kevin_.'' He steers Lydia away, ignoring Sam's eye roll and sigh. ''I thought you were smarter than this, Lydia.''

Somehow, she manages to turn around momentarily, just long enough to throw Kevin a wave, mouthing out a, ''Goodnight.''

He smiles at her and waves back, hanging back with Sam to pay the bill.

''You're a motherfucking genius,'' Dean's saying, steering her out into the chilly night air. ''You know better than to sneak out in the middle of the night without even leaving a note. And what were you two doing anyway? Do I need to give you the sex talk?''

''Oh my god,'' she groans, cheeks coloring. She wrenches herself away from him and spins around to give him the evil eye. ''Are you on drugs?''

''Hey, I'm bein' serious here,'' he fires back. ''Should you be on birth control? Is that a thing we should look into? Because when I was your age - ''

''Oh, please not another _when I was your age_ story.''

He looks mildly hurt by that. ''You don't like my stories?''

''Dean,'' she squirms, positively mortified.

''Look,'' he places his hands on her shoulders and meets her eyes. ''All I'm saying is that if there's going to be boys, then you need to be safe, because if you're not, you will get pregnant and die.''

''I really regret making you watch that movie.'' She glares. ''I just hate you a lot, okay?''

''I'm not raising any babies, Lydia.''

''Do you think maybe you're being a little overdramatic?''

He narrows his eyes, but doesn't say anything.

She tilts her head to the side. ''You can't say anything without starting with _when I was your age_ , can you?''

He blinks at her. He doesn't disagree. ''I feel my concerns are legitimate,'' he says. ''Regardless.''

''Ugh,'' her cheeks are burning. She lets out a frustrated screech and stomps her foot. ''You're so...so... Why do you have to be so embarrassing?!'' She spits out, right before she spins on her heel and storms away from him, back to the motel room.

''Remember!'' He calls after her. ''No babies!''

She gives him the finger. Whatever. Joke's on him, though.

'Cause she locks him out of the motel room.

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.

There is one other witch before New Orleans and Julia, who knows something about Lydia and what's happening to her.

Lydia does not know this. Lydia will never know this. Not if Dean can help it.

Her name is Fiona Delphine. They hear about her through the grapevine. She is supposedly one of the best in the business, young and energetic and enthusiastic about helping people. Fiona Delphine is a pretty girl in her mid twenties; she lives in a picturesque house near San Antonio, Texas, with her husband. She is a sweet, Southern woman with impeccable manners and a kind smile. She is the best hostess in the neighborhood. ...Or at least that is the image she presents to the rest of the community.

Fiona Delphine turns out to be...not exactly on the up and up. It's a long story, but basically, she was sort of rooting for Dick Roman back when that was an option, and she is not at all on Team Winchester. Suffice to say, it ends badly. Lydia winds up with a minor concussion, Sam sprains his wrist, and they both wind up unconscious and out of the picture while Fiona Delphine sets her sights on Dean. He ends up on the floor, bleeding from the nose and mouth while some tiny little girl taunts him mercilessly with nasty shit she has dug out of his own skull.

Because that's his goddamn life.

''Do you think I don't know, Dean?'' She asks with a high pitched laugh, crouching down to his level. He is lying on broken glass and broken furniture, every part of him throbbing, and she is smiling down at him, chipper as can be.

''Know what?''

She giggles, just a tiny breathless huff, and leans down. Her hand presses flat against his chest and she leans in, lips brushing against his ear. ''Everything,'' she whispers. She pulls away, the smile dropping off her lips, replaced by a sneer. ''The first time you laid eyes on her in Purgatory,'' she begins. ''All you saw was the hair.''

His heart clenches. He tries to stop thinking. He tries to put up some imaginary wall to keep her out, but she just keeps digging, deeper and deeper.

''Red and dirty on this young girl, this child, this small fragile body lying in the earth. And I know what you thought, Dean. You thought you had found your girl.'' She pauses to paint on an obviously fake pitying look. She touches his cheek, her perfectly manicured red fingernails scraping at the stubble on his face. ''But it wasn't her, was it? It wasn't...'' She trails off, just long enough to scratch away at everything he carries with him, just enough so that she can get - '' _Emma_.'' She grins. ''Your daughter. It wasn't her. It was some other girl. Some human girl trapped in the lion's mouth, just like you. And then,'' her voice rises and her eyes widen. '' _Then_ ,'' she stresses, ''after you had gotten to know her, after you had guided her through the trenches, you started to care for her. You started to _love_ her.'' She eases up on him, moving backwards, away from him. She watches him sit up and spit out a mouthful of blood with a frighteningly calm smile on her face. ''And you let yourself think, for a second, that maybe she was your second chance. Maybe, you thought, Lydia Martin was a gift. Your chance to do better. Better than Sam, better than Emma, better than _Ben_.''

He grinds his teeth together and tries not to let her win. ''But that was such a ridiculous notion, wasn't it?'' She laughs. ''Why would anyone ever give you a gift? After all of your failures? I don't think so.'' She waggles her finger at him. ''You should know better by now, Dean. If you love her...'' She sighs heavily and goes down on her knees in front of him, reaching out to grab his face in both hands. ''If you love her the way you've loved others,'' she murmurs. ''All you're going to do is drag her down. You don't deserve her. You're too overprotective, too clingy, too dangerous. You love too much. You _need_ too much. You're going to smother her. You're going to _kill_ her.''

''Shut up.''

''Oooh,'' she hisses, ''what an original comeback. Now call me a bitch and tell me to go to hell.'' She shakes her head at him. ''Hey, baby. Don't blame me.'' She moves her hands and sits back on her knees, tilting her head to the side. ''You're the one thinking it.''

''Where are you going with this?'' He demands, blood still coating his teeth, running into his mouth from his nose. ''Hmm? What's the endgame? What do you want?''

''I want you to admit that all you're doing here, with this one,'' she throws a look over her shoulder at Lydia's crumpled figure in the distance, ''is trying to pick up where your dead daughter and the son you abandoned left off.''

''Why do you care so much?''

She allows the first crack to show. She takes in a sudden, sharp breath, mask of mocking anger slip. Her eyes soften and shine with unshed tears and she looks young. Like any other twenty five year old. He almost has a strange moment of pity for her and whatever she has gotten herself into. Almost. ''I care because I want you to suffer,'' she says. ''For what you did. You killed - ''

''I killed a Leviathan,'' he growls. ''And I'd do it again.'' It's his turn to laugh. ''Is that seriously what this is about, kid? Hero worship? Do you realize what Dick Roman was going to do to you?''

''Do you?'' She shrugs. ''Doesn't matter. He's dead now.'' Her hands move back to his chest and she straddles him, pressing herself against him. He would push her off, he wants to push her off, but he can't. He physically cannot move. His hands feel like they're glued to his sides. Her hands move from his chest down. ''And so are you.'' She produces Ruby's knife with the cheeriest smile he's ever seen and climbs off of him. ''I know where you've been,'' she tells him.

He offers her a smile. ''And I know where you're going, _baby_.''

She actually looks vaguely amused. ''You know, you spent a lot of time in Purgatory,'' she purrs. ''Are you even sure you're still human?'' She gets to her feet and brushes off her jeans. Her wedding ring catches the light. She studies the etchings on the knife carefully, running her fingers over them.

Dean thinks, briefly, about how pissed Ruby is going to be if she doesn't get her knife back.

''Well,'' she says, ''I know that monsters go to Purgatory. So. Let's see where you end up.'' She makes exactly one move and then a hand clamps around her wrist. She freezes at the touch and Dean watches real, honest to God fear light up in her eyes for the first time. Whatever hold she had on him dissipates and his body slumps. He lets out a breath.

''I don't think this belongs to you,'' says Ruby, right before she _twists._

There is a sickening crunching noise and Fiona Delphine lets out an ear splitting scream of pain, falling to her knees. Dean is pretty sure that he can see bone poking out of her wrist. His eyes find Lydia as he pushes himself up sluggishly, on one knee. She's sprawled out on the floor, hair splayed out around her, and there is a small pool of blood. He decides he doesn't care about Fiona Delphine's wrist. ''Took you long enough,'' he grumbles to Ruby, accepting the hand she offers him.

''You're welcome,'' she snaps, then tacks on, just for fun, ''old man.'' She also does not give him her knife back, narrowing her eyes and glaring at him as she hides it away where she thinks he won't find it.

Dean ignores the pain and wipes at the blood on his face, turning back to the woman on the floor. She's on her knees, breathing heavily and spitting out curses, tears slipping from her eyes. She's not screaming, despite the horrific injury. She just looks pissed. She stares up at Ruby. The look on her face is...different. ''Ruby,'' she breathes. ''I've heard of you.''

''I've never heard of you,'' Ruby says flippantly, ''but from what I can tell, you seem like an unfortunate mistake. No, seriously. Look at your life. Look at your choices. I'm embarrassed for you right now.'' And then she spins on her heel and goes to check on Sam and Lydia, before Dean even has a chance to ask her to.

Dean tries to catch his breath, wiping away the blood on his face. The girl on the ground - and that's what gets him; she is just a girl, just a young newlywed - is clawing at the hardwood floors with her uninjured hand, trembling and whimpering in pain. He crouches down in front of her and moves to touch her. For the record, he wasn't planning on torturing her, which, he thinks, shows remarkable self-control. But from the way she shrieks and jerks away from him, shrinking back against the wall, you'd think he was going for her throat. ''Don't you dare touch me,'' she hisses.

He pinches his lips. ''That's going to need medical attention,'' he nods at her wrist.

''Fuck off,'' she spits.

He looks over his shoulder. Ruby is hovering over Sam, her fingers brushing over his face, smoothing hair out of his eyes like a concerned mother. Lydia is still out cold, sprawled out on the ground. She's breathing, that much he can tell now that he's looking closer, but there is something about the way she's just lying there that gets to him. Lydia has always been so strong, so composed; light years older than her seventeen years. Even when she has a memory lapse, there is still some sort of wall in her head that he can't get past, one that keeps her from being completely and totally vulnerable. She has never looked as helpless as she does right now, lying motionless on a cold floor. Dean clenches his jaw and watches Ruby move over to Lydia, checking her pulse carefully, _gently_. He closes his eyes.

Okay. _Okay._

_Just this once,_ he promises himself, as he begins to loosen the restraints he has forged in his own head. _Just this one time. For her._

And then he breathes deep and lets Hell and Purgatory and _The Things Dad Did_ back in.

He is not sure how visible the change is, whether it's something in his eyes or the way he stands or what, and honestly, he wouldn't expect it to be incredibly noticeable. But when he turns back to Fiona Delphine, she startles. There's an odd spark that ignites in her eyes. It is something caught between pleased and terrified. It's not a great look on her, really. He leans in close. ''Do you want to know what I know?'' He whispers it in her ear, brushing his lips against the skin of her neck. ''I know how to get you to talk.''

She actually has the audacity to laugh. ''Please,'' she murmurs. ''You don't have the stomach for it.''

''Don't make this harder than it has to be,'' he advises. ''Tell me what I want to know and I'll leave. Don't,'' he curls one hand around her neck and the other snakes towards her injured wrist, ''and your husband's going to find you in pieces.''

She is stone cold. ''Don't threaten me, Dean.''

''Sweetheart, that wasn't a threat. That was a promise.'' He grins. It's a lethal grin. It's from Purgatory. ''You say you know where I've been. But do you really? I can break you in ways you'll never be able to recover from, and I won't even break a sweat.''

''Baby, the only person who is broken here is you.'' She laughs again, sharp and nasty, but _quiet._

He licks his lips. ''You'll talk,'' he says.

She smiles at him, slow and predatory. She runs her tongue over her teeth. ''No, Dean,'' she whispers. She sends a look over his shoulder and suddenly, her smile softens and grows into some sort of sad grimace. ''I won't. You don't get to win this one. You can't.'' She shakes her head. ''You want to know what I know? I know you're not strong enough to win this fight. Not this time.'' She moves faster than he anticipated she would and catches him off guard, lunging at him. She doesn't attack him, not really, she just grabs his gun. He barely even has time to react, diving for the weapon, but it doesn't make a difference.

She presses the barrel of the gun to her temple, and she pulls the trigger.

.

.

.

He turns to see what she was looking at right before she died, and finds a wedding picture of her and her husband.

All he can feel, while he's boxing everything back up in his head and lifting a limp little girl into his arms, is relief. He doesn't tell Lydia a thing. It's for her own good.

Or at least that's what he tells himself.

.

.

.

As soon as they get out of Purgatory, he looks her up.

Lydia Martin. Five foot three. Strawberry blonde hair. Seventeen years old. Sixteen when she would've disappeared. He combs through every missing person database, every mysterious death, every weird occurrence, every blip on the radar. There are no search results. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, there is no Lydia Martin. It's like she's been simply erased.

She is officially a mystery, an enigma, a puzzle to be solved. She is not supposed to be here. Dean is not sure he believes that. He finds it extremely hard to believe that there isn't a single person out there missing this girl. He knows he would. She has extremely expensive taste in things, she's too bossy, too easily embarrassed by him, and she can be downright mean sometimes. But... Fuck. Sometimes he forgets if he wants to solve the puzzle and give her her life back or put her in his pocket and keep her forever. (It's the latter. It's always been the latter.) He loves that spoiled brat.

He cannot be the only one in the world who does.

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.

_still with feet touching_  
 _still with eyes meeting_  
 _still our hands match_  
 _still with hearts beating_   
**\- daughter; still**

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.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, there's no real reason why Fiona Delphine was always referred to by her full name. It was an accident that turned into a running joke halfway through.


	3. i will step out of your past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it turns out, Up is not a happy movie. As it turns out, the first ten minutes of Up are soul crushing and everything that is wrong with everything ever. Did you know that? 'Cause Lydia sure didn't. Spoiler alert: The sweet old man's wife dies. In the first ten minutes!
> 
> Dean doesn't even make it all the way to that part. He gets to the part where Ellie and Carl find out they can't have kids and then he leaps to his feet, declares, quite loudly, ''Nope!'' and leaves.
> 
> Sam is fucking weeping beside her, mumbling under his breath, ''This is supposed to be a kids' movie, why is it so full of pain? Why is this a thing that exists? Who thought this was a good idea?''

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening for this chapter - and the story in general: Sweet and Low by Augustana, Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles, Pick Up the Phone by The Notwist, Where the Kids Are by Blondfire, Time by Hans Zimmer, Angels on the Moon (Acoustic Version) by Thriving Ivory, King and Lionheart by Of Monsters and Men, Young Blood (Renholder Remix) by The Naked and Famous, and Comes and Goes (In Waves) by Greg Laswell.
> 
> I think I'm definitely going to need to put together a soundtrack playlist for this story.

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.

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_trouble that we've come to know will stay with us_   
_with every step it slowly grows_   
_rub off the rust_   
**\- the notwist; pick up the phone**

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.

.

Lydia is a meticulous girl.

She is carefully crafted, elegantly structured and effortlessly _perfect._

It's strange for a girl her age, but it's pretty much the epitome of who she is, whether she remembers that or not. This is something Dean learns about her very quickly. Things have to be done just so with her. She obsessively cleans and organizes cutlery in diners, she alphabetizes his collection of cassette tapes, she folds and hangs up her clothes no matter where she is or how long she's going to be there, and she can spend hours doing her hair and make-up, just to make sure it's perfect. Perfection - or rather, her perception of perfection - is a part of her daily life. If something is not perfect then it's not worth it. Things are done her way or they're not done at all. It's aggravating, yes, and it grates on him more often than not, especially when she's critiquing him on something she knows next to nothing about (how to shoot a gun, how to cook a burger, how to drive the Impala) but it's something he grudgingly leans to accept. She's a teenager and this is what teenagers are like. Dean can vividly remember Sammy as a teenager. He was an insufferable mopey little shit.

She is also a counter. She counts her calories, she counts his calories, she counts how many bottles of nail polish she has, how many tubes of lip gloss, pairs of heels, she counts her steps, she counts her breaths, she just _counts_. It's a method of control for her. All of it. These things make her feel better. They let her breathe. She can't control a lot of things in her life, but she can control these small things. And okay, so maybe it's not the healthiest way to be dealing with everything but surely it can't be the worst.

He would ruminate on this obsessive behavior further, but he doesn't have a leg to stand on in that respect. There is something about Lydia. He's like a first time parent with her. He still checks on her every night, creeping over to her sleeping form with muted prayers of, _please be breathing, oh, god, please be breathing._

We all have our own methods of control.

Lydia's is perfection.

Dean's is Lydia.

.

.

.

For a little while, Lydia almost lets herself believe that it only happens when she's sleeping.

Her memory lapses are tricky things. While they were in Purgatory, they were unusual. In the course of a year, it only happened maybe three or four times. As soon as they got back to the real world, however, it started happening more often. She isn't necessarily surprised by this, to be honest, and neither is Dean (Purgatory suppressed everything, it wasn't stretch to think it would suppress this as well) but she isn't happy about it. Her episodes are nasty, unpredictable things. She never knows when they're going to happen or what she's going to be like during them or if she's going to remember the things she does while in the midst of one. The one thing about them that is predictable is that they always happen when she's sleeping. It's simple. She goes to sleep at night and when she wakes up in the morning, she doesn't remember who she is or where she is.

In the beginning, it always goes like that.

Until.

The first time, it's all Pixar's fault.

One night, while they're still in that old cabin in Whitefish, Montana, she decides she wants to be happy and forget about her troubles for a night, so she makes Dean and Sam watch movies with her. Dean and Sam are very strained right now because of Reasons (those reasons being faked text messages, fresh break ups with Benny and Amelia, Dean taking her to New Orleans without consulting Sam, Lack of Trust, and What Sam Did & Didn't Do While Dean Was In Purgatory - it's basically just a whole bunch of shit that she is a thousand percent done with) but they both flop down on the couch anyway, a Winchester on either side of her, bickering about licorice and movie choices.

Lydia makes it through Dean's pick of Die Hard by mocking it mercilessly, which is not a hard thing to do. She makes it through Sam's pick of Inception by unraveling all of the secrets and mysteries within the first half hour and spending the rest of the movie bored to tears. Then, finally, it's her turn. Originally, she was going to go with Brokeback Mountain, because there are so many Purgatory + Dean/Cas jokes curled up tight in that movie, but considering things are a little weird between Dean and Cas, she decided that was too mean and went for Black Swan instead. Natalie Portman won an Oscar for that, and the internet seems to think it's worth watching. But after the gratuitous violence of Die Hard and the insufferable heaviness of Inception, she just needs something happy.

She pops in Up because it's Pixar and it's sweet and brightly colored.

...Biggest mistake of her life.

As it turns out, _Up is not a happy movie_. As it turns out, the first ten minutes of Up are soul crushing and everything that is wrong with everything ever. Did you know that? 'Cause Lydia sure didn't. Spoiler alert: The sweet old man's wife dies. In the first ten minutes!

Dean doesn't even make it all the way to that part. He gets to the part where Ellie and Carl find out they can't have kids and then he leaps to his feet, declares, quite loudly, ''Nope!'' and leaves.

Sam is fucking _weeping_ beside her, mumbling under his breath, ''This is supposed to be a kids' movie, why is it so _full of pain?_ Why is this a thing that exists? Who thought this was a good idea?''

Lydia is powering through, though. She will admit that she's a little blubbery herself, because she has a soul and if you don't cry during Up, you have no soul, but she's determined to make it through, and she is nowhere near as inconsolable as Sam. She picked this movie. She has to watch it. She has her tissues and her popcorn and her chocolate. Things will be fine. It's not like the movie can possibly get sadder.

But then it happens.

It's after the montage of pain. Sam is desperately trying to compose himself and Lydia is...not feeling so great all of a sudden. It happens quite suddenly, like an avalanche, a rock slide. It starts with a weird taste in her mouth, kind of like pennies, grows into a hot flush that creeps up the back of her neck and turns her cheeks as red as her hair, and it eventually escalates into a ringing in her ears. She has no idea what any of this means, but she's about to. She tries to shake off the feeling and shoves the chocolate away from her, appetite suddenly diminished. She lasts a few more minutes, trying to focus on the movie, but it keeps getting stronger and the ringing is getting louder and louder, it's turning into a roar, and then...

...and then she blacks out.

When she comes to, it is dark and silent, and she is lying on her cot in the cabin. There is something heavy on her stomach and she can't move her hands. She blinks to adjust her vision and sluggishly moves her eyes down. Dean is practically draped over her, fast asleep and gripping her wrists, holding tight even in his sleep. He does not look comfortable. At first, in her bleary, not quite awake state, she's not sure why he's holding onto her, until she becomes aware of something sticky caked underneath her fingernails.

''Dean,'' her voice is raspy and her throat is raw, like she's been screaming. She tries to wriggle out from underneath Dean and get her wrists free. She turns her head to the side and catches sight of Sam, sprawled out on his own cot, one arm thrown over his face. Even in the dark, she can still see the angry red scratches on his skin. She swallows thickly, dread bubbling in her throat. ''Dean,'' she kicks her legs fruitlessly. He stirs. ''Wake up,'' she grinds out through her teeth, ''you asshole, you're going to bruise me.''

He wakes up. When he slowly lifts his head, still half asleep, she feels horror creeping through her. The scratches on Dean's face are worse than the ones on Sam's arms. They are deep and there is a smear of blood on his forehead. His neck is scratched all to hell and so are his arms. Her lips part in shock. He looks like he got in a fight with an alley cat and lost. ''Oh my god,'' she whispers.

''Lydia.'' He bolts upright, letting go of her instantly. ''Oh, sweetheart. Hey,'' he cups her cheek gently, for about half a second, before he draws his hand back quickly. He turns away from her for a moment to shake Sam awake and when he turns back to her, he's smiling. The smile he gives her is easy and careless. ''You back with me?''

She sits up slowly, still staring at the marks she's made on his body. She looks down at her hands, sees the chipped nail polish and the dried blood, and she thinks she's going to be sick. ''Oh my god,'' she whimpers again.

''Lydia - ''

''Did I... Did I do that to you?''

''It's fine.''

''It's not fine!'' She screams. Her cheeks go red with shame. She angrily wipes her hands on the sheets, but the dried blood stubbornly remains right where it is. ''It's unacceptable,'' she snaps. She throws off the covers and rises to her feet. She glares at both Dean and Sam, even though she's not mad at them, and staggers over to the sink, turning on the faucet as hot as it goes. She scrubs at her nails until the blood is gone.

''It's _understandable_ ,'' Dean says firmly. ''We were two unfamiliar men in a busted up cabin in the middle of nowhere with guns on the table, and we wouldn't let you leave. You could've done worse. You _should've_ done worse.''

''Don't make excuses for me,'' her voice is cold.

He blatantly ignores her. ''It's not even as bad as it looks,'' he murmurs. ''Right, Sam?''

Sam nods. He gives her a sweet, little lopsided smile. ''We've had worse.''

''See?'' Dean grins. ''It's just a few scratches,'' he yawns. He sounds tired. His voice is all low and rumbly, gravelly, but not as gruff and short as usual. She remembers that when they were in Purgatory, that tone of voice became oddly comforting to her, like some sort of twisted lullaby. It was soothing. It reminded her of something. Someone, maybe.

''Just a few scratches,'' she scoffs. ''You look like you had angry sex with Catwoman.''

Sam sighs. ''Gross.''

Lydia's hands are still dripping wet, water droplets falling onto the ground noiselessly. She takes a few steps towards Dean and pulls herself up to her full height and then some, standing on her tip toes. She is still significantly shorter than Dean, and light years away from even being in the same hemisphere as Sam. ''Tell me what happened,'' she demands.

Dean rubs the back of his neck with a grimace, displaying the scratches on his forearm. ''It was just,'' he stops. ''It was just one of those things.''

''One of those things,'' she repeats. ''You mean a memory lapse? A fugue state? One of my,'' she curls her fingers into air quotes, _''episodes?''_

''Yeah,'' Dean folds his arms. ''One of those.''

''While I was awake?''

Dean and Sam share a look that she is not comfortable with. They both look so pitying. ''Yes.''

''That's never happened before.''

''...No.''

She picks up a dish towel to dry her hands. She works her mouth silently for a moment and does not freak out. Lydia Martin, whoever that is, does not freak out. She may not remember much, but she remembers that. She does not let people see her cry. ''Am I getting worse?'' She asks. She does a brilliant job of keeping her voice steady.

Dean looks winded. ''I don't know.''

Lydia feels defeated, which is another thing she refuses to tolerate. She sags against the kitchen sink, dropping the dishtowel back onto the counter carelessly. She doesn't know what to do. She really hates that. She rakes a hand through her hair and licks her lips, raising her eyes to Dean. Mostly he looks reassuring and apologetic, but she can see worry shining through. And pity. There are a lot of things he doesn't want people to see, she has learned, and whether he knows it or not, they're closer to the surface than he thinks. She gives herself another minute, lowering her eyes back down to her chipped manicure, and then she pushes off the sink and disappears into the bathroom.

She can't be gone more than three or four minutes tops, searching for the first aid kid and her cosmetics bag, but by the time she gets back, there is a brand new kind of tension in the air between Dean and Sam, and Dean looks like someone has just kicked his car. She glances in between them, wrinkles her nose, and then quickly decides she doesn't want to know. Their stupid issues are just that. _Theirs_ (and also _stupid_ ). She has enough on her plate as it is.

She tosses the first aid kit at Sam without warning, says, primly, ''Fix your brother's face'' and sits down at the table. She rummages around in her cosmetics bag, pulls out her nail scissors, and she cuts her nails.

Eventually, after she cuts them too short and keeps cutting, until she bleeds, Dean has to close one big hand around hers, wrestles the scissors away from her and has to say softly, firmly, ''Sweetheart, _stop_.''

.

.

.

Lydia is in the bathroom.

Lydia is in the bathroom and Dean's heart is pounding against his ribcage like a drum, body humming with anxious, nervous energy. His facade slips and he has to catch his breath. He can feel Sam's disapproving stare burning into his back. His eyes slide sideways, the direction Lydia disappeared, and then he reluctantly allows himself to turn and face Sam's wrath.

Sam looks unhappy. That is an understatement. Sam looks _pissed._ ''You just flat out lied to her, Dean.''

''I'm handling it,'' says Dean, and wishes it was that easy, that simple, that cut and dry.

''Maybe it's not about _you_ handling it,'' Sam snaps at him. ''Maybe this isn't about _you_ at all. Maybe this is _her_ life you're fucking around with and she deserves to know what's happening to her, you ever think of that?''

''I'm protecting her.''

''She's not a child,'' is the cold and even response to that.

Dean's smile is as cold as Sam's voice, twisting angrily onto his features. ''She is _my_ child.''

''Except for the part where she's _not_.''

''Do you think I'm doing this for shits and giggles, Sam?''

Sam sighs and hangs his head. ''I think you don't want her to be scared. And I get that,'' he says quickly, with a nod. ''I really do,'' he takes a few steps towards his brother. ''But newsflash, man, she's already scared. Maybe knowing what's happening to her will help.''

''Yeah,'' Dean snorts, ''and maybe it'll turn her into a paranoid shut in and I'll have to sit there and watch her wither and rot and fade away.''

''Regardless,'' Sam whispers, ''don't you think she deserves to have a choice?''

Dean scrubs a hand over his face, forgetting that there are scratches on his skin, and it hurts. He winces and lets his hands fall to his sides. ''I think,'' he pauses, clenching his teeth together. ''I think that I'm doing what's best for her, and that's all I can do.''

Sam regards him silently, and then says, ''You know,'' in a very soft, quiet tone of voice, already sounding ashamed of what he's about to say. ''This is something Dad would've done.''

Well, isn't that a slap in the face. That's a fucking low blow right there. Dean feels like his first instinct to that should be to lunge, shake his jackass little brother and make him see that he's doing the best he can and that stupid shit like that isn't fucking helping. Instead, he shrinks back, recoiling in hurt, chest heaving, lip curling, fists clenching. All the air just whooshes right out of his body and he can't even defend himself. He unclenches his fists and looks away. And fuck, you know, he knows he's a fucking worthless bastard, but seriously? Seriously, with the Dad topic? Jesus, Sam. The really sad thing, though, is that he can't even say that Sam is wrong.

Dean takes a few breaths. He clenches and unclenches his fists once again. He doesn't even think, for a second, about throwing any of the stupid shit Sam has done back in his face. And then Lydia comes back. He shoves everything to the back of his mind and focuses on her. He can only hope he doesn't look too wrecked.

While Sam is treating the wounds on his face, Dean watches Lydia cut away at her nails and thinks about how _terrifyingly much_ he loves her. He remembers New Orleans, Julia, the pendant he manipulated onto her neck by telling her it was his mother's, the herb supplements he has to keep slipping her just to keep her here with him, the lies he's telling her, all the things she doesn't know...

And yeah.

Okay.

So, maybe this is _exactly_ the sort of thing Dad would've done.

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.

.

In New Orleans, Dean is kneeling in front of a still trembling Julia, helping her shaky hands tilt a glass of water to her lips. There are several bloodied tissues strewn out on the table and there is dried blood on her fingers. Ruby looks ready to punch through whatever magical barrier is keeping her out, just to get to Julia's side.

''Better?'' Dean asks, keeping his voice soft. It's taking a remarkable amount of self control to not demand Julia tell him what she knows _right now_. He moves his hand to her knee, and she raises her eyes to him at the touch. She arches one single eyebrow and puckers her lips. He wisely retracts his hand.

She nods slowly and takes one more sip of the water. ''I'm sorry,'' her voice is hoarse. ''I... I had no idea it was going to take such a toll on me. I didn't mean to frighten you.'' She looks up to meet Ruby's eyes. ''Either of you,'' she tacks on meaningfully.

Ruby relaxes slightly. _Slightly._

Dean raises his eyebrows and very pointedly does not ask _what the fuck?_

''It...'' Julia shakes her head, eyebrows knitting together. Her teeth sink into her lower lip. She looks...worried. That does not bode well. ''It required more power than I thought it would to access her mind.'' She places the glass of water down on the table. ''My circuits overloaded,'' she says dryly.

''But you did it, right?'' Dean blurts out, and doesn't even have to look behind him to feel Ruby's disapproving stare.

Julia rises gracefully to her feet, lips quirking into a smirk. She stares down at Dean, who is still kneeling on the floor, and something about her exudes power. It _oozes._ It's eerie. ''I did.''

Dean stands to tower over her. She still seems to have the upper hand. ''You know what's happening to her, then? What's happened to her?''

Julia pauses before she answers, attention slipping over to Ruby just long enough for her smirk to stretch out into a softer, kinder smile. ''It's a wall,'' she says, regretfully.

He audibly sucks in a breath. His body tenses, goes ramrod straight, and he folds his arms over his chest. ''A wall,'' he parrots. ''Like - ''

''No,'' she's firm, definitive. ''Not like the kind your brother had in his head.''

''How do you know about that?''

She scoffs. ''Please.''

''Okay,'' Dean rubs at his temples. ''Okay, so... How is it different?''

She hums in contemplation and considers her words very carefully and for a long time, before she answers, ''Do you know how ivy grows?''

He does not know what the fuck to do with that. ''How is that _at all_ relevant?''

Julia gives him a look, proving that apparently this is where Ruby learned the art of sass. ''Sooner or later, it covers everything,'' she deadpans.

Dean waits for more. It does not come. ''...And...?''

''It's like that.''

''...Uh, Jules,'' Ruby pipes up, after a painfully awkward minute of nothing. ''I _reeeaally_ think you're going to need to elaborate there, babe.''

Julia puts one hand on her hip, looking affronted. She tilts her head to the side and says, bluntly, ''Your daughter's head is all fucked up.''

''Keep elaborating,'' Dean hisses. ''And she's not my daughter.''

Julia seems to deflate a bit, looking wrung out and weary, rubbing at her forehead. ''It was...confusing,'' she confesses. ''Being in her head. But from what I saw, it's almost like there are two forces at work. One of them was dark, the other was light. Someone put up a wall in her head. That was the original source of her amnesia,'' she tells them. ''And the wall started to crumble. Not organically, mind you, someone was actively trying to break it down.''

Dean clears his throat. ''Why?''

''To help her access her memories, I'd wager,'' she shrugs. ''But they're not the only party at work. Like I said, some dark source put up the wall and when the light source tried to fix it... The darkness is trying to cover the wall to keep whatever's behind it from seeing the light of day.''

An uncomfortable silence invades the space between and Dean swings his eyes over to the door separating him from Lydia. A wave of sudden anger surges through him. She is seventeen years old. She's a child. Who would do this to a child?

''Essentially what you're saying,'' Ruby drawls, ''is that there's a battle of good and evil going on in her head?''

''Well,'' Julia lifts one shoulder in a sort of aborted shrug. ''I believe it's more complicated than that, but yeah, sure. Let's go with that. It certainly sounds more dramatic, doesn't it?''

''It really does.''

''Who the hell does that to a little girl?'' Dean spits.

''Maybe she knows something she shouldn't,'' Ruby suggests. ''Maybe she _saw_ something she shouldn't have.''

''Dean,'' Julia places her hand on his wrist. Her hand is cold. ''There's something else you should know.'' Her tone is hesitant and this time, when she offers him a little smile, it's sad and pitying.

Dean doesn't like that. He doesn't like that one bit. He stands straight. ''And what's that?''

''What's happening to her... It's degenerative.''

His mouth has suddenly gone bone dry. He looks to Ruby, but she has looked away. ''What,'' he has to clear his throat - again. ''What does that mean?'' He asks, even though he already knows.

''It means she's going to get worse,'' says Ruby, her voice a low, awkward sounding murmur, body drifting to the side, closer to Dean.

Julia nods. ''It's what's causing her memory lapses, and it's only going to get worse. Her episodes will start lasting longer, they'll happen more frequently, come on more suddenly; she'll probably suffer from seizures, anxiety attacks, bursts of violence, and her immune system will be compromised. By the later stages, she will most likely be confined to a bed, her organs will start to fail, and she may even lose control of her bladder and bow - ''

''Stop!'' Dean scrubs a hand over his face. He can see it all in his head, vividly; how she will begin to wither, gradually at first and then more quickly; how Lydia, that bright, beautiful spark will just fade away, burn out. He remembers now. Why he never lets himself have friends, family. Everything around him always dies. He had a plant once and even it died. He is always left with nothing but ashes. ''Just...'' He closes his eyes. ''Stop.'' He swallows thickly and when he opens his eyes, he's looking at Ruby. She has one arm wrapped around her stomach and she's gnawing on her thumbnail. She looks guilty, like she never should have brought him here. He looks away from her, back to Julia. ''That's - Alzheimer's. You're describing Alzheimer's, Julia.''

The fact that Julia looks as upset as he does, like she can feel what he is feeling, is not helping. ''Yes.''

''She's fucking _seventeen years old!''_

''And somebody is leaving claw marks all over her mind like it's a battleground. This is what happens. She's slipping away, Dean.''

''No.''

''Dean - ''

''No.'' He's three seconds away from pulling out his own goddamn hair. _''No._ I don't accept this. I don't - There has to be something you can do. You - '' He looks in between Julia and Ruby desperately, pleading. ''You're both witches!''

''I am not a _witch_ ,'' Julia hisses, sounding genuinely offended.

''Fucking whatever!'' He advances on her, running on fumes and terror, which, yes, he realizes is not wise. ''I don't care if you're a witch, a psychic, or a fuckin' abominable snowman! Just fix. My. Kid.''

''Dean!'' Ruby's voice is commanding. He doesn't even have to look at her to know her eyes have gone black as tar. ''Back off, or I swear to God - ''

''Don't you dare fight my battles for me,'' Julia snaps at Ruby. ''I am not your own personal damsel to save. This was always your problem, Ruby.'' Then, to Dean, ''I'm sorry,'' her tone is agonizingly final. ''But I can't do much. I can give you something that wards off illness and might - _might_ \- stabilize her for awhile but other than that, this is out of my hands.'' She pinches her lips, exasperated. ''You can be as angry as you want,'' she says. ''That's your right as someone who loves her. You can scream and cry, you can threaten me, scour the globe for a better second opinion, but it won't change the facts. That is a very sick little girl you got in there, darlin', and whether she lives or dies is, as scary as it sounds, entirely up to her and whoever wins that battle inside her head. It's a sad truth, but I'm sorry, that's what it is. The truth.''

All Dean can really do with that... He has no idea what to do with that.

He sinks into a chair, body just folding into itself and collapsing weakly. He feels helpless. That is not a feeling he relishes. It's like that night in Cold Oak, or May 2nd, 2008; it's like when that Argent woman sliced Ruby open with her own knife and it took her almost a month to heal herself completely, or when Cas stood before them and declared himself to be the new God, or when Bobby... When Bobby... He leans forwards, rubbing at his aching eyes with the heels of his palms. It's like that night, that one night, when his mother burned on the ceiling and took his father apart, piece by piece, with her burnt hands. He tries not to think about that. He draws in a few shaky breaths, and he thinks only of Lydia. Of that young and vibrant girl lying in there, and how she does not deserve to die like this: so slowly and painfully and needlessly.

He lifts his head slightly, hands over his mouth, and he makes a split second decision that he's sure he'll regret sooner rather than later, but can't bring himself to care right now. ''Do you know anything else about her?'' His voice is even. It seems to jolt Ruby and Julia.

''I - yes.'' Julia glances at Ruby. ''But I'd rather wait to tell her - ''

''Good.'' Dean stands. ''You tell her whatever meaningless little details you've got - her mother's first name, her favourite color, but you do not tell her what you just told me.''

Julia's lips tighten. ''Excuse me?''

''You're not going to tell her that she's getting worse,'' he says simply. ''You're going to tell her something small, something that makes her feel better, and then you're going to give me whatever you've got to stabilize her and you are _not going to tell her she's dying_.''

Ruby says, ''Dean,'' in this quiet little voice, like she's shocked, as if this is the worst thing he's ever done, which, you know, yeah fucking right. Off the top of his head, he can name about eight worse things he's done.

''What?'' He sends her a glare. ''Like you haven't ever lied to the people you claim to love?''

She looks hurt. He can't bring himself to care, heart racing, face heating up. ''And I learned from those mistakes,'' she says, wounded. ''I _paid_ for those mistakes. You, of all people...'' She scoffs, looking vaguely disgusted with him and his life choices. ''This is her life,'' she points out. ''It's her body. She deserves to know what's happening to her. She deserves the truth.''

''She deserves to be able to wake up in the morning,'' his voice rises with every word, ''without worrying about dying of supernatural induced dementia!''

''Men and their penchant for protecting the womenfolk,'' Ruby sneers. ''You assholes. Let me ask you a question, Dean: Has keeping things from people ever worked out for you before?''

''I won't tell her.''

Dean and Ruby both look at Julia. Dean is surprised. Ruby looks like she wants to rip out their spines with her teeth. ''What.''

Julia shrugs, but smiles this strange sort of small smile, like she knows something they don't. ''Lydia is seventeen,'' she says. ''A minor. Dean is, for all intents and purposes, her guardian. I won't tell her. Not if Dean asks me not to.''

Ruby looks like she wants to argue, but instead she just crosses her arms and huffs, looking slightly homicidal and very annoyed, but mostly disappointed. Disappointed in Dean. He almost wants to laugh at that. What else is new? The sun rises in the east, sets in the west, NBC's ratings suck, and someone is disappointed in Dean Winchester. ''Thank you,'' he breathes.

''Don't thank me,'' Julia says. ''You have no idea what's coming your way.'' And then she turns and flounces away to go check on Lydia.

There is a moment of silence between Dean and Ruby and then Ruby growls and calls after Julia, ''You always have been far too dramatic! This was always your problem, Jules!''

.

.

.

Of course, Dean isn't exactly expecting what happens next.

He expects Julia to tell Lydia where she's from or if she has any other allergies aside from seafood (found _that_ out in the worst way possible) but no. Instead, when Lydia wakes up, her anxious eyes peering around Julia to where Dean is standing, Julia looks right at the girl and says, ''Did you know that there is a reason why you were placed with Dean?''

From outside the room, there is a triumphant, ''Ha!'' from Ruby. ''I fucking knew it! You owe me dinner, Winchester!''

'' _What_ does that mean?'' Lydia croaks out, waving Dean away when he tries to help her up.

''It's not an accident you two found each other in Purgatory,'' Julia says, watching Lydia drag herself to her feet. ''You were banished to Purgatory,'' she glances at Dean, ''for reasons I don't know,'' back to Lydia, ''but you two stumbling across each other was more than just some coincidence.'' She throws a look over her shoulder at Dean. It's oddly _smug_. ''She was placed with you, Dean.''

''By who?'' Lydia asks, rubbing the back of her neck.

''Somebody good.''

''But you don't know who?''

''No.''

''And you don't know why?''

''...No.''

Lydia's eyes cloud over with fire and she turns on Dean with clenched teeth, jabbing her finger into his chest. ''I told you this was a waste of time,'' she bites. ''We have better things to do. _I_ have better things to do.''

''He's meant to keep you safe,'' Julia hums. ''And you, my darling,'' she steps over to Lydia and places her hands on the girl's pale cheeks. Lydia looks uncomfortable at the touch, but still throws a hand out to keep Dean in place. ''You are so much more than some girl. You,'' Julia looks at Dean with a look on her face that is indescribable, ''are a gift.''

Dean stills.

Lydia swallows. She is the first one to break the silence, pulling away from Julia roughly with a roll of her eyes. ''Great,'' she sneers. ''It's nice to know that I'm basically the property of some angsty old white dude 'cause he needs a pick me up. That makes me feel super awesome about myself.''

''That's actually not what's happening here,'' Julia is completely deadpan. ''But I understand where you're coming from.''

''I think you're spending far too much time with Dean,'' Ruby calls to Lydia. ''You just used the words _dude_ and _awesome_ without being ironic.''

''I'm sorry,'' Dean cuts in. ''Old? I'm thirty five.''

''Almost thirty six,'' Lydia corrects.

''Oh, right. I forgot that once you hit thirty six your life is over and you should just lie down in a coffin and wait to die.''

''Well, I'm always happy to remind you.''

Julia just laughs. ''Just wait until you find out why you're with him, honey,'' she tells Lydia. ''Then tell me if you're lacking girl power.''

Lydia glowers. ''But you're not going to tell me why, are you?'' When she gets no answer, she huffs and flips her hair dramatically. ''Fan-fucking-tastic. What a wonderfully pointless waste of my time. Thanks for nothing.'' She sticks her nose up in the air. ''I don't like you,'' she informs Julia coldly.

''Lydia!''

''She's cryptic,'' is Lydia's defense. ''I hate cryptic. It's _rude_.'' She crosses her arms decisively and turns her glare to Dean. ''Can we go?''

.

.

.

''What an anticlimactic day,'' Ruby says, instead of blurting out the truth, which Dean was terrified she would do. Lydia is pissed off and practically vibrating with about thirty different conflicting emotions, there is some sort of amulet that's supposed to ''help'' weighing Dean's pocket down, and Julia is way too fucking calm and serene to be around right now. ''No offense, Jules,'' Ruby adds on with a lazy yawn. She beckons Lydia over to her and Lydia - who really wants to leave apparently - slowly strolls over to her, looking apprehensive as she does so. ''Come on, kiddo,'' Ruby says. ''I'll buy you a beer.''

''No, you will not,'' Dean grumbles. ''She's seventeen.''

''Right, and I'm sure you waited until you were twenty one to have your first sip of alcohol.''

Dean's lips pinch together. ''It doesn't matter what I did. It matters what she does.''

''Ugh, fine. Then I'll buy her some gumbo. Give me your wallet.''

He scowls at her. And gives her his wallet.

After Ruby has led an unnervingly quiet Lydia from the shop, Dean turns back to Julia and opens his mouth to -

''No.''

He clamps his jaw shut and stares, surprised. ''What?''

''You think I was bullshitting you,'' she says. ''I wasn't. It may be hard to believe but she really was a gift.''

He snorts. ''Yeah, sure.'' She grins. ''It's so hard to believe, isn't it? That you would deserve something as precious as her.'' She moves closer to him and something about the way she moves, the way she just slinks forwards, makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He shivers when she touches his hand, fingers dancing over the lines of his palm. ''You underestimate yourself, Dean,'' she murmurs. ''You deserve only good things.''

He looks down at her, trying to decide if the look in her eyes is teasing or genuine. He keeps his voice even and his expression blank. ''So, someone brain wiped a sixteen year old kid, erased her from her friends and family and gave her to me as a gift? That's eighteen different levels of creepy.''

''Oh, no,'' she waves that off. ''That's entirely unrelated. Just trust me when I say that you two were meant to find each other. You always have been.''

He doesn't know what that means. ''There are a lot of things you're not telling me.'' It's not a question.

''There are a lot of things I _can't_ tell you.''

''Can't or won't?''

''Bit of both, honestly.''

He grunts, frustrated. Barely fazes her. His mouth works silently for a minute, mind desperately grasping at straws, before he blurts out, ''Why her?''

Julia chews on her lip and looks far too innocent for it to be genuine. ''You two have a bond,'' she says. ''A connection. You always have. Even before you knew her, you loved her and she loved you. It's something rare. _She_ is something rare. You're supposed to be together. You were supposed to find each other again.''

''...Again?''

She laughs. Her laughter is loud and musical and mesmerizing. She's terrifying and there is no way in hell that she is human, but she is also enthralling. Captivating. He thinks he can understand why Ruby fell so hard for her, assuming he is right about that particular theory. ''You'll find out.''

He shakes his head. ''Lydia was right. You are cryptic, and it is rude.''

''In the meantime,'' she reaches up to touch his cheek, a soft caress that he doesn't mean to lean into but does anyway. ''Hold onto her,'' she advises. ''For as long as you can.'' Something about the way she says _for as long as you can_ makes his stomach churn. ''You deserve happiness,'' she says firmly. She leans up on her tip toes and still has to pull him down so that she can brush her lips across his cheek. Before she draws back and melts away from him, she whispers in his ear, ''Your mother thinks so, too.''

His blood runs cold.

.

.

.

He had a daughter once, he thinks, as he helps Lydia Martin over a fallen tree, holding onto her hand tight so she won't fall.

His daughter was a monster, yes, and she was trying to kill him, but she was still his daughter. She was still made from him. He tries his best to forget about that, about her. He hasn't yet managed to succeed. Her name was Emma. That's one of the things he remembers best about his daughter because the second she told him he was her father, all his shock riddled brain managed to think was he wouldn't have picked that name.

_I would've named her Mary_ , he remembers thinking, later that night, when he threw the match onto his daughter's body and watched her burn.

He didn't love Emma when she died, but if Sam had been five minutes late getting to him, Dean probably would have taken the bullet for her. He wonders what that says about him. That she was a monster who was trying to kill him, and he still thinks of her as his daughter, and he knows he would have died for her, if he had the chance. If he had five more minutes. He wonders what his father would say about that. (He wonders what his father would say about a lot of things.)

And he cannot remember the sound of her voice when she said _please don't let him hurt me_ or how tall she was, but he remembers she was beautiful.

Once upon a time, he thinks, loping off the head of a feral werewolf that had locked onto Lydia's scent, he also had a son.

He has not forgotten anything about Ben - he could draw you a picture of his face, tell you all of his favourite songs, what his best subject was in school, the name of his best friend, the girl he had a crush on, his school principal, what sports he followed, what scared him, what made him laugh, how bad of a patient he was when he was sick, how much of a little brat he could be - but he sincerely hopes that Ben has forgotten everything about him. He hopes Ben will never remember anything about the man who is only alive because he had to help Ben Braeden with his homework.

He loved Ben when he made the choice to take himself out of that equation, and he regrets a lot of things about what happened with Lisa and Ben - he regrets getting them involved, getting them hurt, staying even after he had been pulled back in - but he can't bring himself to regret knowing and loving that boy (or his mother, really, but that's a story for another day).

Dean Winchester is a lot of things. A hunter, a charmer, a con man, an asshole, a disappointing son, a brother who tries his best, a man who can't seem to win one. Everyone knows these things. But what they don't know - what he hopes they can't see - is that he's also a father who has lost two children and as much as he tries to push that away, to ignore that, to tell himself that Ben and Emma were never really his, but sometimes he can't help but _feel_ those losses. Whether he likes it or not, he is a parent without a child now.

And that is something that is hard to ignore.

In the filth of Purgatory, Dean turns around to face the girl on the ground, wearing his jacket, her eyes big and round, her skin pale, and he gives her a smile that shows his teeth before offering her his hand. Compared to the dirt and grime he's covered in, he's sure the white teeth, and really just the smile in general, must be odd. He figures he looks _deranged_ at best, with _serial killer_ rounding second.

The girl, still new to all of this and understandably petrified, takes his hand anyway.

Lydia Martin, he thinks, when her fingers curl into his, is going to be trouble.

.

.

.

_pick up the phone and answer me at last_   
_today i will step out of your past_   
**\- the notwist; pick up the phone**

.

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note: I will be going on summer vacation in the beginning of July and I will be gone for one month, so that long space between updates that will be happening is not because I've abandoned this story, it will just be because I'm on vacation with limited internet access.


	4. my ship of hopes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn't say anything else, and they both sit in a strange sort of comfortable silence. Eventually, she gets up to go to bed. Before she drifts away from him, she leans down over the back of the couch, letting her red hair tickle his shoulder, and she kisses him on the temple.
> 
> Maybe she didn't know him when he drank, but she's proud of him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Just a quick reminder: This story is not told in chronological order.
> 
> Also, an additional trigger warning for this chapter: Substance abuse/relapse. Manhandling. Truly assholish behavior.

.

.

.

_and i can't fall asleep_  
_without a little help_  
_it takes awhile_  
_to settle down_  
_my ship of hopes_  
_wait till the past leaks out_  
**\- the national; terrible love**

.

.

.

The night after Lydia tries to claw his face off and Sam compares him to Dad, Dean goes to a bar and orders a whiskey, neat. It's not their fault - not Lydia's, not Sam's, not Ruby's, not Julia's, not even Cas's, that dead asshole, not anyone's. This one is all him. He knows that. This is _his_ problem. This is _his_ weakness.

This is _his_ relapse.

He sits there for what feels like hours, staring into the glass and waiting for something, someone, to stop him. Nothing does. He takes a sip. He takes another sip. He drains the glass dry. He's not going to lie and say he doesn't feel the burn, because he feels it. It's in his throat, his chest, his stomach. It washes over him like a wave and he clenches his fingers around the empty tumbler. He pauses, gasping for breath. He waits.

Nothing happens. Nobody comes bursting through the doors to pry the glass away from him and tell him he can't do this, he can't ruin over a year of sobriety. Nobody tells him he can't be that person again.

He tries to breathe evenly and keeps his expression calm and level. He swallows hard.

He orders another.

.

.

.

Lydia cannot remember her real birthday (which, you know, no shit) so she chooses one herself.

Carefully.

In Purgatory, she never got to celebrate her birthday, but at some point, she turned seventeen, which means she's going to be turning eighteen. Which is important. Apparently. Dean doesn't really get it and to be honest, he only heard like half of her incredibly well thought out Why I Deserve An Eighteenth Birthday Party speech that she made (with charts and graphs) so he just goes with it, because he doesn't actually think anything is going to be stopping that train.

For whatever reason, she picks March 1st as her birthday and she goes all out. She doesn't just plan a party. She plans an extravaganza. (''But is it themed?'' Charlie wants to know. ''It's not black tie, is it?'' Kevin winces. ''Can I bring Mr. Fizzl - '' '' _No_ , Garth. Just no. Eigh _teen_ not eight.'') And she does it with Dean's credit card. And then Sam's when she maxes Dean's out.

Unfortunately for her, the flu bug that's been going around claims her as it's next victim a day before her party. Dean tells her that they can have another party when she's feeling better. Hell, she can pick another birthday. Get double presents. But she stubbornly insists that she's fine enough to be at a party.

''People came a long way, you know,'' she tells him, with narrowed eyes. ''It would be incredibly rude to cancel. Plus, you made a huge cake and everything - ''

His ears do not go red, shut up.

'' - The show must go on, Dean,'' she nods decisively, sounding firm and sure of herself, right before she hacks into a tissue and then blows her nose (and then promptly holds the used tissue between her fingernails and gives it to Dean to dispose of - and fucking seriously, this is his life now - fucking eighteen years old, planned a party, survived Purgatory, kills monsters, saves damsels, and she can't thrown her own goddamn garbage away, _what the fuck_.)

Despite everything that is wrong with choosing to have a party while you're sick with the flu and also an Honorary Winchester, the party isn't horribly pathetic and nobody dies, so... Winning.

The invite list is short - Sam, Jody Mills (who, by the way, dotes over Lydia - and also Kevin - not quite as much as Dean, but close), Charlie, Garth, Linda Tran, Krissy, Josephine and Aiden, and Kevin - and there are a few people missing - Benny, who sends a gift (a ridiculously pricey designer dress that makes Lydia's eyes go roughly the size of anime eyes, because surprise - the vamp's got style) but declines the invitation because while things are getting better between Benny and Sam, they're still not best friends forever, Cas isn't there because he's still MIA, the fucker, and Julia's response to the invitation was ''oh, honey, that's so sweet and I definitely would, except I don't want to.'' And Ruby isn't invited. Because Lydia still doesn't like Ruby. That's still a thing that's happening.

It's not perfect, but you know what? Nothing ever is. And maybe that's okay. The cake is surprisingly not horrible, Lydia loves all of her gifts, and she's happy. Her nose is running, her voice is raspy, she's developing a fever, and she can barely manage to choke down a few bites of cake, but she's happy. Kevin - newly moved into the bunker and sleeping in a bedroom far, far away from Lydia's at Dean's insistence - kisses her even though she's sick and she beams, which is the most disgustingly adorable thing ever and Dean hates it.

Ruby shows up near the end of the party, bloodied and dirty _from a fight with one of Crowley's men_ , she says. She says she's only here for a shower and Dean's bed, but she steals some cake and there is a suspicious looking package that has been added to the pile of gifts, before she disappears to his bedroom. It's a set of throwing knives. A set of throwing knives that Dean quickly realizes she stole, which sheds a whole new light on why she limped into the bunker looking like she had been in a fight of epic proportions. It's actually rather sweet, given the fact that Ruby has been trying to teach Lydia how to throw knives because Lydia still can't quite manage to master a gun. But it's still a set of throwing knives. That Dean promptly takes away. Because it's _a set of throwing knives_.

Lydia, practically asleep on her feet, hauls herself to bed at a quarter to eleven and by the time everyone else leaves or retires to bed, it's nearly one in the morning. After Dean and Linda clean up (all by themselves, thank you very much, you lazy motherfuckers) and the new dishwasher that Lydia forced them to buy and install is running, Dean finally crawls into bed at two thirty in the morning. Ruby shifts her body closer to his, not quite touching, but close enough.

Dean doesn't sleep right away.

He stares at the ceiling and thinks, again, for a second, then another, and another, and another, a minute, then five, about praying to Cas. Just asking if he's all right. If he's even alive. If he's sorry. If he still thinks he's doing the right thing, the selfish bastard. Dean wants to know these things. He wants to know if Cas ever stops to think about what he does to other people when he makes these choices. What he's doing to Ruby, who is fucking skin and bones because she's running herself into the ground, leaping off buildings, fighting off dragons, breaking curses for some angel who doesn't deserve her. He wants to know if Cas ever thinks about what he's doing to Dean, who is stuck stationary, on the ground, on earth, _waiting_ , with a sick kid and a brother who just doesn't want this life anymore.

Dean wants to know if Cas ever thinks about how everything they are and everything they aren't, all three of them, the hopelessly lost, is basically centered on _waiting_. Dean is so sick of _waiting._

For a long time, he lies still on the bed and thinks about everything he wants to ask Cas, formulating the questions, the epic speech, in his head. _Where the hell are you? What were you thinking? Are you okay? What do you want? What do you want from us? You have no idea how pissed I am at you. You have no idea how much I'm not angry with you, I'm hurt by you, and I'm angry with myself for not being angry with you. I think you're a fucking idiot. That's what I think._

''Can't you just give us something, you coward?'' Is what he winds up snarling out through his teeth. ''Give us anything. How hard would it be?''

There is no answer.

He knows why he's disappointed. He doesn't know why he's surprised.

''Dean,'' Ruby's voice is soft. It's rough, thick with sleep, and raspy, caught in her throat, but it's soft, lacking the snark and vitriol that has always been the norm with her. It's a low, sweet hum. It's nice. Her hands slips up his shirt and she drags her nails down his skin slowly, just enough to make him shiver and relax. He thinks she's going to say something like, _stop talking to the ceiling like an idiot_ or _either shut the fuck up because I'm tryin' to sleep, asshat, or eat shit and die_. Instead, she whispers into his neck, ''Go to sleep.''

And he does.

He wakes up at about four in the morning, torn out of his slumber by a strange noise in the dark. At first, groggy and not fully awake, he lies still and tries to figure out what that noise was. And then he realizes it was a crash that came from the next room. Lydia's room. He practically rockets out of bed. Well, actually, that's not true at all. He gets out of bed slowly and carefully so as not to wake Ruby and murmurs a quiet, ''Go back to sleep,'' when she wakes up anyway, before he staggers over to the door. But if Lydia asks, he _rocketed_ out of bed to get to her, okay? He pauses briefly before he enters her room, hoping he's not going to be walking into anything between her and Kevin that he shouldn't see, and then he turns the doorknob and pushes through.

The only accurate description of how he feels when he enters the room is this: It's like his heart has grown talons and is currently trying to claw its way up his throat and out of his mouth, leaving a trail of raw open wounds in its wake. It's a bad feeling, is the gist.

Lydia is lying on the floor of her bedroom on her stupidly priced rug that she made him buy, unconscious. She's on her back, one leg bent slightly, one arm thrown out, the other over her stomach, with her hair framing her head. There is an empty water glass shattered on the ground next to her, the liquid soaking through the carpet. His first thought, his very first thought, is that the protection charm and the herbs aren't working anymore and she's run out of time. His first thought is that this is it.

''Lydia,'' her name leaves his lips in a single, panicked breath, and he's at her side in an instant. She is burning up when he touches her skin and she's white as a sheet, her skin so pale it's nearly translucent.

It's only when she moans and her eyelids flutter, head lolling to the side, that his heart starts beating again.

.

.

.

''This is utterly ridiculous,'' Lydia huffs later, after she's been admitted to the hospital for severe dehydration and a fever of one hundred and three. ''I am not some child who can't take care of herself. I don't need to be hospitalized. They're wasting time and resources and the taxpayer’s money on me.''

Dean says nothing and continues humming Foreigner.

She audibly clenches her teeth.

_''Hot blooded, check it and see, I got a fever of a hundred and three,''_ sings Dean.

''Stop that,'' she barks, pointing a bony finger at him.

''No, this is what you get.''

''That song is about _sex_ , Dean.''

He stops singing, but keeps humming, slouching down in the chair beside her bed. He tilts his head back to stare up at the ceiling and absently chews on the drawstrings of his hoodie.

''Dean,'' Lydia snaps. ''Don't be a fifteen year old boy.''

He spits the strings out, sits up straight and stares at her, arching a single eyebrow.

She stares back for an impressive amount of time and then folds like a wet napkin. ''Ugh.'' She throws her hands up in the air. ''I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I scared you.'' She pauses, most likely waiting for him to accept her apology, but he says nothing. She narrows her eyes. ''But,'' she flips her hair. ''I still stand by my decision to have the party. So there.''

He stares at her incredulously. ''Lydia,'' he has to stop to heave out a frustrated sigh. ''A hundred and three degree fever, you threw up three times on the way to the hospital, your blood pressure was way too low, and also, severe dehydration is a thing that you have.''

''Well, I feel better now.''

''Mmmhmm.''

''I do!''

'' _Severe_. The doctor literally used the word _severe_. Fucking _severe_.''

''I get it, Dean,'' she snaps, crossing her arms like a petulant child - and then immediately uncrossing them because of the IV in her hand. ''I was there. You don't have to keep saying severe. It doesn't even sound like a word anymore.''

''All I'm saying,'' he tries, scrubbing a hand over the thick stubble on his face that he should probably get around to shaving sometime, ''is that you should've slowed down when you got sick. You've been goin' nonstop these past few days and look where it got you.''

She glares. ''Right. Because I'm the only one who has made poor choices regarding health in the past couple of months.''

He knows he can't defend _that._ He drops his gaze to the ground and takes in a few calming breaths. _Teenagers_. ''Lydia.''

''Oh my goood, Dean, I was _fine_.''

''Yeah, you seem real fine,'' he snorts. ''Tell me somethin', hon. How's that catheter workin' out for you?''

''I do not have a catheter.''

''But I do have to clean vomit out of the backseat of my car, don't I?''

Her cheeks redden. ''You're the actual worst.''

''I'm the fucking best,'' he corrects, ''because I'm going to _clean your vomit out of the backseat of my car_.''

''Well, it's the least you can do,'' she says primly. ''Clearly it was your cake that - ''

''Do _not_ insult my cake. You loved that cake. Plus, Sam had five pieces of that thing and he didn't puke once.''

''That you know of.''

His eyes go heavenwards.

She shifts uncomfortably in the bed, cursing at her IV and ugly hospital gown. ''How long do I have to say here anyway?''

He shrugs. ''You're at least here for the night.''

She makes a disgusted sound, but seems to give up, flopping back down against the pillow. ''You should go home,'' she finally says, quietly. ''You're tired, and that chair doesn't look like a comfortable resting place for someone of your height.''

He scoffs loudly, ''Fuck that noise. You're stuck with me.''

''Joy,'' she says sarcastically, but noticeably relaxes. ''You know,'' she adds on, licking her lips. She sits up again and he resists the urge to sigh. ''This is a prime example of why I need my own laptop.''

He groans loudly and drags a hand over his exhausted face. ''Oh, Christ. Not this again.''

''I can't even watch Game of Thrones in here!''

''Laptop's are fucking expensive, Lydia. I get that you don't realize this because you don't have to pay for anything using your own money, but the cost of living is fucking ridiculous and I'm the one who has to pay.''

''Um.'' Her eyes dart from side to side thoughtfully, then back to him. ''Don't you basically commit credit card fraud and hustle people at pool?''

He blinks at her. ''And do you think that shit's easy?''

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. ''Oh, please. You're just afraid I'll get a Tumblr and stop spending time with you if I get my own laptop.''

He works his jaw silently. He does not disagree.

''I'm eighteen, Dean,'' she says. ''I need to be able to download the first season of Girls. Also, True Blood and Downton Abbey - ''

''You have literally the worst taste in television. Seriously. What are you, a teenage girl?''

''And, you know, Kevin and Sam are perfectly wonderful people and I respect them and care for them greatly, but if they make me watch another episode of Chuck or Community or Archer, or fucking Breaking Bad, I swear I'll scream.''

''Okay - ''

''And online shopping is extremely important to my general well being - ''

''Okay. Okay, Lydia.'' He leans forwards to grasp her wildly gesturing hands, afraid she'll yank out her IV, and startles her enough that she stops talking. He tries not to smile but fails horribly. ''Sweetheart,'' there is laughter in his voice, ''I'll think about it. I promise.''

She rubs her dry lips together and thinks long and hard about this, humming softly, before nodding, apparently deeming it a worthy offer. ''Well, good then.'' She lies back down on her side and begins to tuck her hands under her pillow, only to take them out instantly and glare at her IV. She picks at it in disgust, stopping only when Dean says her name in that recently acquired (lie) Dad voice of his and gives her a _'oh, now, I know you're not messing with your IV'_ look. ''Also,'' she wrinkles her nose in what looks to be some kind of deep personal offense. ''What do you mean I have the worst taste in television? You watch Dr. Sexy.''

''Hey! That is an Emmy award winning show!''

She sneers, but it lacks any real heat. ''And isn't that just a sad commentary on the decline and inevitable death of primetime network television?''

He heaves a put upon sigh and gives her a flat look, but can't quite keep his lips from twitching upwards.

''Be honest, though,'' she says. ''Are you honestly going to tell me that you don't like Game of Thrones?''

He squirms. ''Well. I mean. Charlie would probably disown me if I said no.''

''Dean.''

''Yes, okay?'' His voice rises. ''I like Game of Thrones.'' He pulls his hood up over his head and pulls the drawstrings. ''I love Game of Thrones.''

''Oh no,'' she sighs. ''Don't. Dean. Don't do the turtle thing. Stop it. Stop it.'' The authority in her voice quickly dissolves into honest to God _giggles_.

He ignores her and slouches even farther in his seat, pulling the strings so that only his mouth is visible. The Turtle, as Lydia calls it, is not something he ever did until one day when he was running on fumes and he just wanted people to leave him alone for _two seconds, holy shit, can't you people do anything without me?_ He quickly discovered, that day, that it makes her laugh, and he would do anything to make her laugh. ''I live a Daenerys Targaryen appreciation life. And I want a dragon.''

''I feel like...it probably wouldn't be a particularly wise idea to give you a dragon,'' she tells him. ''By the way, do I get any points for not making a Ruby is Cersei comparison?''

''I'll think about it.''

''That's just your answer for everything, isn't it?''

He lets out another heavy sigh. There's a brief moment of silence and then, ''I also like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,'' he mumbles, ''but nobody wants to talk about that show.''

She lets out a loud burst of laughter and covers her face with her hair. ''Don't make me laugh,'' she moans, but her body is already quaking with full body laughter. ''My whole body aches. It's not helping.''

He chuckles and pushes the hood back. A wide, eye crinkling smile breaks out over his face when he sees her laughing. It's never far from his mind that Lydia is just a kid, too young for this life, too young for any of this, but she's always so put together and so badass and she rarely, if ever, lets her guard down. But here, now, face free of make-up, lips turned up into a smile instead of a grim, determined straight line, eyes lit up, giggling, she looks so young. Every bit the child that she still is. He leans forward again, this time to tenderly brush her hair out of her face. ''You should get some rest.''

She sighs, but doesn't protest, rolling over onto her back and letting him pull the covers up over her. ''I really am sorry, you know,'' she says, after a moment of quiet. ''I don't regret my party, but I probably should have slowed down. It was never my intention to scare you the way I did. I never wanted that. ...And you should accept that and move on.''

''I just don't want to lose you, Lydia,'' he admits, letting the soft confession slip out in a moment of quiet, raw honesty.

She is silent. He watches her swallow at the admission, looking touched and humbled. Then, in true Lydia fashion, she scoffs and gives him a brilliant, blinding smile. ''Of course you don't,'' she murmurs. ''It would be awful to lose me. I'm a gem. You need me.''

''Brat,'' says Dean.

But he doesn't disagree.

.

.

.

Dean never actually tells her while they're in Purgatory. He never says the words, ''Hey, by the way, I'm an addict.'' Turns out, he doesn't need to. Purgatory may be some sort of weird suppressant for basically every normal human function, but sometimes Dean's withdrawal symptoms bleed through. It's like her memory lapses. Some things just cannot be contained.

It's not bad - not nearly as horrific as it could have been outside of Purgatory, but sometimes these things happen. Dean will get a blinding headache, or a bout of nausea, or his hands will shake so badly that he can't hold anything.

Lydia has no idea why she knows this, or even how she knows this, but for some reason, she instantly recognizes these symptoms. The knowledge is just sort of there: _Oh, that's_ _withdrawal._ As she's learning, she knows a lot of things about _a lot_ of things. It's kind of weird. ...She kind of likes it.

She never asks him about it, never feels like she needs to know how long it's been, or what his vice is. She figures as long as he's not getting himself or anyone else hurt or killed, it's his business and he deserves some privacy. So she stores the information away in the back of her mind, just in case, and she moves on.

Once they're out of Purgatory, it becomes obvious, quite quickly, that his weakness is alcohol.

She learns this the day she meets Sam, when he offers Dean a beer and Dean says, ''No thanks. I don't do that anymore.'' It's not a remarkable moment complete with swelling music and hugs. Dean's not even looking at Sam when he says it, fiddling with something on the table, but the expression on Sam's face is like the expression of a brand new father: full of amazement and pride, with a fair amount of terror mixed in with the overwhelming awe.

That's when Lydia gets it.

''So, you don't drink?'' She asks later that night, when Sam is snoring softly, and Dean and Lydia are sitting on the dilapidated, threadbare couch, eating marshmallows straight from the bag and pretending that the reason they're not sleeping is because they're really into the telenovela on the ancient television set and not because of Purgatory.

He seems to startle at the question, and then relax, like he had been expecting it but hoped she wouldn't ask. He stares at her for a second and then turns away, dropping his gaze. ''I did,'' he says, and the tone of his voice, low and ashamed, makes her pause.

She takes another marshmallow and picks at it, licking it off her finger. ''But you don't anymore?''

''Apparently not.''

She tilts her head down and peers up at him through her eyelashes.

He clears his throat. ''No. I don't. Not since Purgatory.''

She nods and focuses on the TV. She does not say, _well, then maybe Purgatory was the best thing that could have happened to you_. That would be a horrible thing to say. She's not a completely tactless person, thank you very much. She says, instead, ''Well, good for you. You should be proud of yourself.''

He doesn't respond, but he looks completely floored by the suggestion that he should be proud of himself for something. That's a foreign concept to him, it seems.

She doesn't say anything else, and they both sit in a strange sort of comfortable silence. Eventually, she gets up to go to bed. Before she drifts away from him, she leans down over the back of the couch, letting her red hair tickle his shoulder, and she kisses him on the temple.

Maybe she didn't know him when he drank, but she's proud of him anyway.

.

.

.

Months later, the inevitable happens.

Mind controlled Castiel beats Dean to a bloody pulp and disappears with the angel tablet. Meg dies for Ruby, shoving her out of the way of Crowley's blade, and Ruby goes on some sort of ruthless kamikaze mission out of guilt, disappearing from the Winchester's lives. And Dean is left waiting. She gets the feeling he does that a lot when it comes to those two. She gets the feeling it's taking a toll on him.

Lydia learns, during this time, things she didn't want to know. Like how just because someone has been in recovery for over a year does not mean that they are suddenly not an alcoholic. (She really should have known that.)

It's February and she's not sleeping, because when she does, she just sees Dean, broken and bleeding on his knees, flinching away from her touch. She locks herself away in the library with the doors shut and goes about indexing the massive collection of books. She lasts an hour or two, and then she falls asleep with a pile of books surrounding her, head resting on an open book, the pages turned to an entry on the angel Ramiel. She wakes up suddenly, in the middle of the night, jerking upright with a gasp. Her first thought, in her groggy state, is that she must have had a nightmare. But then she realizes it was the sound of the door clanging shut that tore her into the waking world.

Blearily, she wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand to make sure she hadn't been drooling and blinks a few times to clear her foggy vision. She pushes herself up, onto her feet, and attempts to gather up the books. She quickly gives up and decides she'll do it tomorrow. She clumsily finds her way to the doors, but stops to listen before she opens them. She can hear voices; quiet and muffled by the door, but there is a sense of urgency, of panic, that makes her heart drop. She pushes open the doors.

Sam looks utterly horrified when he sees her standing there. He freezes up, like a deer in headlights. ''Lydia.'' He stops. Nobody says anything for a long time. ''I,'' he edges towards her, looking back and forth between her and the other occupants. ''Honey - '' and _that's_ new coming from him '' - I thought you were in bed.''

Lydia barely reacts, too busy staring at Dean and trying to swallow her heart back down.

He's standing there, wearing his new black leather jacket that she had custom made for him for his thirty sixth birthday (she wore his red leather jacket for a year in Purgatory, she figured she owed him a new one) and his eyes are red and bloodshot, and he's swaying lightly on his feet, and he's staring at her like he's looking right through her. And she knows.

''You're drunk,'' she says, whispering the accusation into the tense, thick silence. It hangs there; dirty, uninvited, naked.

Dean's lips pull back into a smile she has never seen on his lips before, wide and unassuming, but one that doesn't make it to his eyes, not in the right way. His bloodshot eyes gleam with a sick sort of pride. The dried tears on his cheeks tell a different story. ''That's my girl,'' he tells her, and she notices that he doesn't slur his words, doesn't sound drunk, although his voice is darker somehow tired, maybe, mocking, almost _cruel_. ''Always gotta be the smartest person in the room.''

By his side, clutching at his arm, Ruby never wavers. She looks downright awful, in her oversized hoodie and jeans, hair mussed, but she stands tall, keeps her lips pressed tight and her eyes hard and focused, despite the dark bags and the pale pallor of her skin. Like a walking corpse. Like a ghost.

Sam looks like he wants to hide away, fidgety and uncomfortable, keyed up and on edge, like a little boy who has just come to the unfortunate realization that superheroes can fall.

Lydia thinks they're entirely too dramatic. Had they not been expecting this? Addicts relapse. Addicts relapse because they're human. And Dean is no superhero. She does not waste her time on bothersome emotions. She doesn't have that luxury right now. She just marches straight up to Dean, plants her hands on her hips and demands, ''How long has this been going on?''

He smirks down at her. He doesn't answer.

She narrows her eyes and stands on her tip toes, still not even close to being eye level with him. ''How long?''

'' 'Bout a week.''

She deflates slightly, shock crawling under her skin. She combs through her memories of the past week and tries to dissect his behavior, searching for some warning sign or clue. She comes up empty handed.

He notices the split second look of shock on her face and he grins at her, like a shark. ''I'm a _functioning_ alcoholic, sweetheart. I'm not a blubbering mess. I function.'' His voice softens, just a little, and the canary smile dims. ''You couldn't have known.''

''Lydia,'' Sam speaks up, stepping up to place his hand on her wrist softly. ''You should probably go to bed. We've got this.''

''I'm not going anywhere,'' she snaps. ''And I resent being told what to do, Sam.''

He sighs. ''Lydia - ''

''I. Am not. Going. Anywhere.''

''I'm going to get him some coffee,'' Ruby speaks up. Her voice is a hoarse whisper, emotionless and dead and exhausted. So very un-Ruby like. She walks away without one scathing insult or eye roll, moving slowly. She's a mess, but whether she's a mess because of Dean or something else remains to be seen.

Apparently not for Sam. He clenches his jaw and looks at Dean. ''What did you do to her, Dean?''

Dean rolls his eyes.

''What'd you to do her, Dean?'' It's a growl this time.

Dean moves past them both, unsteady and uncoordinated, not as badass and smooth as he probably feels. He sits down at the table and stares up at Sam. ''What're you tryin' to say, Sammy?''

''He's trying to say that you're acting like an asshole,'' Lydia deadpans. ''Which you are.''

He laughs humorlessly and leans forward, forearms resting on his knees. ''Newsflash, kiddo: Dean Winchester is an asshole.''

Lydia crosses her arms and tilts her head to the side. She makes a big show of considering this brand new piece of information, puckering her lips and running her tongue over her teeth. She hopes she appears to be at least somewhat calm on the outside, because she can feel her heartbeat racing, pounding away like a hammer. ''Sam.'' She turns to give him a perfectly pleasant, well crafted, easy smile. ''Would you mind giving us a moment, please?''

Sam doesn't move. ''That's not a good idea.''

She scoffs and waves away his concern. ''The man is drunk off his ass, Sam. He can't even stand. He lacks the amount of coordination needed to be a threat to me. He won't hurt me. I can take him if he tries. Just give us five minutes.''

Sam still doesn't look convinced.

''Sam,'' Lydia lowers her voice, but says his name firmly. ''Please.'' To put emphasis on her point, she stares at him until the cracks begin to show in his armor. ''Just go help Ruby with the coffee,'' she orders, placing a hand on his arm. ''We'll be fine.''

It takes at least three more minutes to convince Sam to leave and by the time Lydia turns back to Dean, he's rubbing at his head, elbow on the table. He still doesn't look right, not like the Dean she knows. There's an arrogance about this version of Dean Winchester, a false bravado, a mask made of alcohol. It's an ugly look on him. She crosses her arms and feels a wave of anger wash over her. There's a physical ache in her throat, that's how angry she is. Her voice is stone cold when she says to the drink, ''Withdrawal is going to suck this time, you know.''

He raises his head and smirks. ''That's only if I stop.''

She raises her eyebrows. ''Oh, you're stopping. You're stopping because I'm telling you to.'' She offers the smirking bastard a smirk of her own and pulls a chair over to him, sitting down across from him. ''And I _always_ get what I want,'' she adds on, in a warning. ''You make sure of that, don't you?''

He tenses, but keeps his mouth shut, just sitting there, looking like death warmed over. Turns out, Dean isn't a stereotypical drunk. He doesn't slur his words, or stumble and stagger everywhere, but his eyes are red and he does reek. The scent of alcohol is rolling off of him in waves, so strong it's making her feel physically sick. Which only serves to further her frustration.

She leans back and tries to reign in her anger. ''Why?'' It's not as simple as it sounds, that one word question, and she knows it.

But Dean, drunk, with every wall up, angry at the world, remains unconcerned and closed off. ''Why not?''

The disgusted sound that passes through her lips winds up sounding like a shaky, sad sigh. ''Do you think this is who you're supposed to be, Dean?''

He reacts physically to that, drawing away from her, nostrils flaring, eyes flashing, not with anger but with pain. He looks like he has been gutted. ''I think that I was an alcoholic long before you,'' he sneers, ''and I'll be one after you.''

She arches a single brow. ''After me?'' She questions. ''You think you can get rid of me?'' She crosses one leg over the other. ''You think I'm going anywhere?'' The look that passes through his eyes is a far cry from the smug cockiness he seems to have claimed as his brand new persona. It's a split second look of fear and premature grief, like she's dying, or already dead, before he turns his head. It's troubling. She doesn't move, doesn't react. She licks her lips, breathes evenly, and keeps her expression calm and level. ''Dean. _Hey_ ,'' she leans in close to him and grabs his face roughly, smushing his cheeks with her bony fingers. ''Listen to me, you big pile of angst and manpain. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you. Why would I? I don't have anywhere else to go. I don't have anywhere else I'd _want_ to go.''

He pulls out of her grasp silently. She half expects some angst ridden answer of, ''Everyone leaves me,'' straight from some teenage soap opera. Instead, he looks at her with this odd, calculating look and tilts his head to the side. He seems to think about her bold promise for a long time, turning it over and over in his head. Finally, he asks her, ''Did I ever tell you about Emma?''

A shake of her head. ''Who's Emma?''

''She was my daughter.''

Her entire body freezes. Her heart free falls into her stomach and all the blood rushes to her head. She pulls back. No. He most certainly had never told her about Emma. Once she fights through the dizzying attack of shock, she zeroes in on one singular thing that makes her throat close up. _Was._ Emma _was_ his daughter. Something gnaws at the back of her mind. ''N-No,'' she gets out. ''You've never told me about her.''

He nods, extraordinarily calm. ''We weren't close. I barely knew her. But I think I loved her.'' He frowns, looking deeply confused by the conflicting emotions. ''I think I could have loved her the way I love you.''

Lydia tries to swallow. Her lips part and she tries to speak, but nothing comes out.

''Sam killed her,'' he says, plainly, casually.

Lydia's blood runs cold. Horror flows through her. ''What?'' It comes out a croak. Some part of her thinks it's just a terrible cruel joke, something fictional created to get a rise out of her. To shock her.

''She was trying to kill me,'' he monotones, no emotion whatsoever in his voice. ''He had to.'' But this is where he pauses, furrowing his brows as if trying to remember important details of the story. A vague emotion passes through his eyes. ''I guess.'' Even though she has so many, she doesn't ask questions. She wants to so desperately, but she has no idea where to start. ''She was... She was a monster,'' he says. ''An amazon. She was born to kill. She was an accident. A mistake. I just... I just hooked up with the wrong chick. I never wanted her.'' He sounds like he's trying to convince himself. ''But I still think I loved her.'' He shakes his head. He looks a little disgusted with himself. ''How can I love her?''

She doesn't quite know what to say to that. ''She was still your daughter,'' she tries. ''It's perfectly reasonable to grieve. It's natural. It's normal.''

He scoffs at that. ''Nothing about this is normal.'' He stops abruptly, scrubbing a hand over his face and leaning back in his chair. ''When we were in Purgatory,'' he says, voice slow. ''I thought for sure...''

''You thought you would find her.''

He freezes for a brief second and then he looks straight at her with this uncomfortably intense look, unblinking. ''But I didn't. I met you instead.''

There's a bundle of nerves coiled tight inside of her chest. It makes her pause, and she has to swallow down an apology. But fuck that. Fuck him. She's not going to apologize for him getting burdened with her instead of finding his monster daughter instead. It's not like it's her fault. Still. She can't help but ask, ''Do you wish you had found her?''

He doesn't answer that question. He leans in close to her, too close, stares at her intently for a truly disturbing length of time. His voice is rough when he speaks up; he sounds like he has gravel in his throat. ''You look like her.''

That's it. That's what she was afraid of.

She jerks away from him when he moves to touch her hair, standing up so fast that her chair nearly topples over. Her breathing speeds up and there's a churning in her stomach, a kind of disgust and hurt. When he stands as well, she moves away, behind the chair, strategically placing something in between her and No Boundaries Dean. ''I look like her?'' She loathes how her voice sounds so weak and how it fucking _trembles_. ''I look like your dead daughter?'' He says nothing. ''Is that supposed to be a compliment? Is that why I'm here?'' She demands incredulously. ''Is that what I am to you?''

''Don't be stupid,'' he snarls at her.

She stops dead. ''I'm sorry,'' she says. '' _What_ did you just say to me?''

He ignores her. ''I said you looked like her.'' He strolls straight up to the chair separating them but doesn't move it. ''I never said you reminded me of her. Because you don't. You're nothing like Emma.'' A pause. He takes in a ragged breath. ''You remind me of my mother, actually.''

She lifts her gaze from the floor back up to him, eyes wide. ''Your...'' She licks her lips. ''I do?''

''She was brave,'' he says with a nod. ''Like you.'' He takes a single step forwards. ''She was smart. ...Like you. Strong, independent, fierce.'' He calmly moves the chair out of the way and walks towards her, movements slow but lumbering, not threatening, but not innocent. ''And she was foolish.''

She had not been expecting that one. ''Dean...''

''She put herself in danger. She tried to play hero one too many times, and she died because of it. She _died_ , Lydia.'' She doesn't bother backing away from him as he advances on her, just stands tall and waits. Perhaps it's naive, but she's not afraid of him. She pities him. ''She left me here all alone,'' his voice never rises. ''And so will you. You'll die here. Like all the others. Lydia,'' his voice is a hiss. He grabs her wrists before she can stop him, locking them in a vice.

She lets out a startled gasp and struggles fruitlessly. ''Dean,'' she heaves what she hopes sounds like an exasperated sigh. ''Let go of me.'' He doesn't. ''Let go.''

''I'm going to kill you,'' he says, ''and you know it. Why the fuck are you still here?''

She gives him an angry glare instead of the answer he's looking for, pulling herself up to face him. ''Take your hands off of me.''

Before he has the chance, a pale, dainty hand comes into the mix, fingers curl around his shirt, and then his back is on the table and he's groaning in pain. Ruby, still clutching his shirt, doesn't let go. ''You touch her like that again,'' she growls at him, ''and I might consider doing what you asked me to do.'' She turns on Lydia, eyes charcoal black, zero patience left in her. ''Lydia,'' she barks. ''Go to bed.''

Lydia, heart beating in her throat, emotions threatening to spill over, does the single most un-Lydia like thing in response to Ruby's cold order: She listens. Determined not to let this callous stranger wearing Dean's face see her cry, she spins on her heel and she runs.

She doesn't sleep.

.

.

.

_it takes an ocean not to break_  
_it takes an ocean not to break_  
_it takes an ocean not to break_  
**\- the national; terrible love**

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	5. you're my comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is something that she's missing, a nostalgia she can't explain, a hole she doesn't know how to fill, and there is clearly a part of her that wants to go home, wherever that is. The problem with that is that she's happy here. She loves these people. She loves this home, the one that Dean has so carefully and painstakingly made for her, laying it all out before her, cracks and all, in a moment of rare, unabashed vulnerability. This is her life now. This is her family.
> 
> But there's a pull in her chest that is telling her - that has always been telling her - that it doesn't really matter what she wants. This is going to happen whether she likes it or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, I cannot apologize enough for the long ass wait! For the past couple of months, I've been really busy working on my new SPN Witch AU Halloween story, If She Floats (shameless plug, I know, my apologies) and then I had some real trouble with the end scene for this chapter for some reason. But it's here now, and I'm hoping that fast updates are going to be making a comeback as well!
> 
> Oh yeah. And happy premiere day, fellow SPN folks! Who else excited for tonight?

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_you can run from me_   
_you can hide from me_   
_but i am right beside you_   
_in this life_   
**\- chantal kreviazuk; in this life**

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Forgetting is unacceptable. It may be unavoidable in her shitty life, but it is unacceptable.

After she scratches up Dean's face, bogged down by the knowledge that she is potentially getting worse, Lydia drags Dean out to Best Buy and makes him buy her a flip camera. ''For memories,'' she says, and that's all she needs to say. She doesn't start filming things right away, she actually tucks the camera away and forgets about it (which, hey, irony), but not long after Cas comes back from Purgatory and right after that absolutely absurd cartoon case where she had to save the damsel in distress again (the Lydia Saves the Day count is up to six now; since coming back from Purgatory, armed with new special skills, she has saved Sam's life, Benny's life, both of the Trans lives have been saved by her wonderfulness, and Dean twice), she discovers the camera at the bottom of her bag.

She doesn't film at any specific time, doesn't film hunts, or wait for big, important moments to happen, doesn't have a particular format; she just films the little things. Every day life with the Winchester family.

In the morning, in some cheap motel room, with her hair still wet and stringy from the shower, her feet stuffed into those ridiculous bunny slippers that Cas helped her pick out (because motel floors are disgusting), she turns the camera on Sam. He's sitting at the scratched table by the bathroom door, sipping at his coffee and looking grumpy, eyes on his laptop screen. Because he looks so truly grumpy and this will undoubtedly annoy him, Lydia zooms in on him.

That is their relationship in a nutshell.

''Would it kill you to smile, you big grumpy Sasquatch?'' She asks from behind the camera.

There's a very pointed not-smile in response.

She giggles. ''You are really not a morning person, are you?'' She slinks closer, just so she can stick the camera in his face even more.

''I like morning fine,'' he deadpans. ''I do _not_ like having a camera shoved into my face.''

''Why not? Afraid the ten pounds it adds will accentuate your flaws? Because your hair is already doing that.''

''Don't you need my consent?''

''This isn't MTV, Sam. Get a grip. The world doesn't revolve around you.''

''Me? How is that my problem right now? I think you're the one who needs to realize the world doesn't rev - ''

''The world revolves around the sun!'' Dean shouts from the bathroom. ''Now shut the fuck up! It's too early for your shit!''

And then when he comes out of the bathroom, Lydia is on Sam's back, laughing and filming the back of his head, and Sam is Not Amused.

On a breezy but sunny day, when the Impala is racing down a deserted highway, windows rolled down, Lydia's red hair flowing, she turns to Dean, camera in hand, and asks, ''What's your favourite song?''

Dean looks at her briefly but the shades over his eyes hide his expression. ''Relevance?''

''I don't know. Just wondering. I like learning about you. What's your favourite color? Favourite movie? Favourite sport? What's your earliest memory? Do you read? What was your best subject in school? Who do you think would win in a fight, pirates or ninjas?''

Dean grins, shaking his head as if he's trying so damn hard not to smile but can't do it. The eye crinkles are almost _audible._ ''Ninjas, definitely.''

''That's it? That's all you're giving me?''

''My favourite color is blue.''

She lets out a snort at that and turns the camera on herself. ''A real shocker. Because guess whose eyes happen to be a piercing shade of blue?''

Dean's hand shoots out to steal the camera from her and she squeals, effectively waking Sam in the backseat. She jerks away from Dean and the camera winds up slipping from her fingers and falling between the door and the seat. For the next minute, all that's recorded is darkness and the sound of her loud, clear laughter.

Dean and Sam don't mind the camera nearly as much as they pretend they do. This is proven factual by all the times they take over for her, grabbing the camera to film her doing something ridiculously Lydia, like eating her raisins with a fork, or applying her make-up with intensity, it's as if she's applying war paint, or singing and dancing to Born This Way when she thinks she's alone.

''So, future YouTube star,'' Sam drawls one day, sitting across from Lydia in a Biggerson's, camera on her. ''What are you about to try that you're deeply terrified of?''

''I'm not terrified, you shut your mouth,'' is the snappy answer he gets.

''Uh-huh. What kind of ice cream is that?''

She sighs. The expression on her face says that she regrets every decision that led her to this moment. She narrows her eyes at the ice cream cone in her hand. She does actually look deeply terrified of it. ''Black licorice ice cream.''

''Black. Licorice. Ice cream,'' Sam repeats.

''I honestly don't know what's wrong with either of you,'' Dean says, sliding into the seat next to Lydia. ''Licorice is a beautiful, beautiful thing,'' he tells her. ''Don't be afraid of it.''

''Dean,'' says Sam. ''Licorice is disgusting.''

Dean says, quite succinctly, ''You're fucked up.'' He gives Sam a look. ''Now shut up, because we're confusing her.''

''I'm not confused,'' Lydia says, resentfully. ''I have an IQ higher than 170. I don't do confused. Also, I hate you and it's important that you know that.''

''Lydia, sweetheart,'' Dean tries for exasperation but doesn't quite get there, dissolving into laughter instead. ''You're dripping.'' He reaches over to wipe at her wrist with a napkin. ''Just hurry up and do it.''

She hesitates, but goes for it. It's just one quick swipe of her tongue over the frozen treat, but it's enough, apparently. The face she makes, lips puckered, body shuddering, eyes squeezed shut, is probably the youngest she has ever looked. She looks like a five year old being forced to eat her peas at the dinner table.

Sam's laugh is booming and nearly hysterical, but Dean's laugh is warm and quiet. ''I can't even get mad, that's how adorable you look.'' Then he kisses the side of her head and steals her ice cream cone.

''That was not funny,'' she sputters. ''I can't believe you made me eat that thing!''

''It was ice cream,'' Sam says. ''It's not like we made you do the cinnamon challenge.''

Around his ice cream, Dean smiles devilishly. ''Hey, Lydia...''

''No,'' she says flatly. ''I don't even know what that is. And it's still a big fat no.''

Sam laughs so hard that the rest of the video is shaky and out of focus.

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Lydia's going to go ahead and count the camera as a win.

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On an unseasonably warm night in February, Lydia's biggest problem should be wondering whether or not these boots go with her pink floral dress/cropped blue denim jacket combo. She's a seventeen year old girl. She should be back at home, doing her nails because her nail polish is getting unacceptably chipped, blasting sugary pop music and ignoring Dean's pleas for her to _please listen to something decent, please, sweetheart, my ears are bleeding_. She should be trying to coerce Dean into making her a veggie burger (he actually makes the best veggie burgers she's ever tasted, but he hates making them because apparently it, like, goes against his personal code or something?) and stealing Sam's laptop to go shop for shoes online. What she should be doing right now, as a seventeen year old girl, is living a ridiculously, painfully boring existence, in Lebanon, Kansas, with her boys.

Nope.

Instead, she's in Lincoln Springs, Missouri, skidding to a halt in some dirty crypt in the basement of some dirty old abandoned warehouse.

And there's Dean, down on his knees in the dirt, mangled and broken in front of Castiel. A sharp blade glistens in the angel's hand and his eyes are blank, empty, dead. There is a moment, a single second really, where Lydia feels her entire body freeze up, keeping her in place. It's barely a second of understandable panic and fear but when it passes, a crushing guilt crashes down on top of her. Her breath catches in her throat, body trying desperately to inhale, speechless at the sight before her, and then she moves, letting her feet propel her farther into the room, over to Dean. She thinks she should be afraid of Castiel, of the non-look in his eyes, but the thought doesn't even cross her mind.

The only thing she feels is anger and a fierce, scarily intense need to protect. It's the strongest emotion she has ever felt, which strikes her as strange for some reason. She falls to her knees in front of Dean, her horrified eyes taking in the extent of the damage. He is horribly beaten, one eye swollen shut, arm clearly broken, face bloody and raw. He looks battered. There is a growing hysteria gnawing at her, constricting her throat and pricking at the back of her eyes. ''Oh, god,'' it comes out in a shaky breath and she winces.

He flinches when she moves to touch him and her hand falls away, her useless fingers curling. ''Lydia,'' he's breathless, panting and blinking blood out of his eyes. ''Lydia,'' his voice cracks. ''Go. Please. Get out of here.''

She ignores him. Her bare knees ache from falling to the concrete and she has blood on her hands. Somewhere in the background, away from Lydia's anxious hands and Dean's maimed body, Castiel's blade clatters noisily to the ground. She barely hears the noise over the roaring of her own panic in her ears. She whirls around, her red hair whipping in her face, in her mouth, and when she sees Castiel reaching down for the angel tablet, she just sort of...reacts. She dives for it and straight up _claws_ at his wrist with her nails. But, then, the second her fingers touch his skin, or maybe the second his fingertips graze the tablet, something happens.

A white hot searing pain starts in her stomach and flows up to her chest, her head, her arms and legs, and a brilliantly bright white light explodes, enveloping everything. She feels like her first instinct should be to shield her eyes, to hide away from the light, to protect Dean from it, but she doesn't. She lets it wash over her like a wave, covering her, her hair billowing in the warm breeze, her eyelids fluttering shut. The light dies down, recedes until it is nothing, and she is left breathless and with a strange humming in her ears. Her heart is beating out of her chest.

She lets go of the angel tablet with a gasp, eyes adjusting to the dark. She looks up at Castiel. He's standing there, staring down at her with furrowed brows, eyes widened just a little, like he's seeing her differently, for the first time maybe. He steps back. Away from her. She doesn't let herself think about how, for a second, maybe that was fear in his eyes.

She has absolutely nothing to say to him. But she opens her mouth anyway. ''All of this for a piece of stone?'' Her voice is deadly, somehow managing to be shaken, betrayed and furious all at once. Her hands are still on Dean, holding him up. She can feel his body trembling from pain. ''A fucking piece of stone?'' She is sure that the water in her eyes is just from the brightness of the light. ''Well, you can keep the damn thing,'' she snarls.

''Lydia,'' Dean's voice is a slur and his hands shake, weakly grasping at her jacket. ''Lydia, please. _Don't_.''

She turns back to him, and his body, spent and wrecked, sags against her. The reality of the situation crashes down onto her and a frightened, startled dry sob escapes her lips, her hand coming up to the nape of his neck. This isn't just another weekly beating by monster. It's not something a bandage or ice pack can fix. She knows this. Dean - strong, capable Dean who literally ripped and shredded his way through Purgatory - is broken.

Her mind races with questions. What if he has internal bleeding? What if he has a concussion? Bleeding in the brain? How far away is the nearest hospital? What's the quickest way to get there? What if he needs surgery? What if he needs physical therapy? What will happen if he can't hunt anymore? If he's left with a permanent injury? Will he accept that? Kill himself trying to prove that he's fine? Will he start drinking again? She shakes her head. No. No, she doesn't have time for that.

She turns to look back at Castiel again and when she sees him move towards them, she jumps to her feet and easily places herself between him and Dean. ''No!'' It comes out as a shrill scream instead of the warning growl she had hoped for. ''No.'' She points an accusing finger at him. ''You've done enough.'' It doesn't matter to her that he looks mortified, horrified by what his own hands have done to the man he supposedly cares for, the one he rebelled for, the one any sap with eyes can see he loves, in all the right and all the wrong ways. ''If you touch him again, I will kill you,'' she tells him. ''Don't think I won't. Don't think I _can't_.''

''Lydia,'' Dean's voice is stronger this time, but still a pant. '' _Stop_.''

''Did he even fight back?'' She asks Castiel, blatantly ignoring Dean's plea. ''Did he even try to stop you? He didn't, did he?''

''Lydia,'' Castiel has never sounded so exhausted before.

She still doesn't care. ''Why are you even still here?'' She hisses. ''You got what you wanted. Take it and go. Just leave us alone.''

''Stop,'' Dean tries, again.

''I can fix him,'' Castiel pleads.

''Fix him? You're the one who broke him!''

''Please.''

''Stop it,'' Dean's voice rises, and then falls to a sick sounding begging. '' _Stop it_.'' He sounds desperate.

It's the only reason she stops.

Castiel takes advantage of her distraction and marches right past her, focused and determined and so ashamed, and he puts his hand on Dean's face.

Lydia doesn't stop him.

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She doesn't talk about the bright white light. She doesn't _want_ to talk about the bright white light. It was just the angel tablet, of course, what else could it have been, but it's still not something she wants to ruminate on.

It's a rough night for everyone.

Not only does Cas beat Dean to a bloody pulp and then disappear, but Meg apparently dies for Ruby, pushing the bloodied demon out of the way of Crowley's knife. (Lydia doesn't know much about Meg, just that she had been in Crowley's hands for over a year and Ruby was the only one who had attempted to look for her, and she is also the only person who seems to intimidate Ruby.) Frankly, it's a feat of extraordinary strength that Dean manages to pull Ruby away from the body.

Later, in the bunker, when Sam and Dean are talking quietly, and Ruby is sitting silently, brushing Dean off every time he tries to touch her, Lydia overhears Sam ask what it was that broke the connection. Lydia cannot help herself. ''Maybe it was just the power of human love,'' she says, and winks at Dean.

Dean glares at her.

She offers him a perfectly pleasant smile in response.

And then, out of nowhere, there's a strange and deafening static noise in her ears, and she can feel warm hands all over her body; hands that aren't there, aren't _real_. There's a voice in her head, her own voice, garbled and distorted. It takes her a moment to work out what she's saying. She has no idea what it is - it's like a memory, sort of, but it's not a picture, it's just a foggy voice in the very back of her mind, coupled with the taste of salt. '' _I do_ ,'' she hears. '' _I do still love you_.''

She has to sit down.

She breaks down in tears not five minutes later due to this sudden, inexplicable, overwhelming sadness and longing that takes over every part of her mind and body. It's like turning a faucet on. She feels the tears behind her eyes and then they just push their way out, sobs exploding and ripping from her chest. She doesn't like it; it's humiliating to come undone like this, to lose such a great amount of control in front of Dean, Sam and Ruby. But she can't stop it.

She blames it on the stressful day and the hysterical panic that still hasn't quite left her, and she lets a somewhat startled Dean wrap her up in his warm, safe arms, sobbing harshly, violently, into his shirt.

He tucks her into bed that night. Actually literally fixes the covers over her and kisses her forehead before flicking the light off and telling her to get some sleep like she's some helpless five year old who needs daddy to check for closet monsters. She can't even muster up the physical strength to be annoyed by this.

There is something that she's missing, a nostalgia she can't explain, a hole she doesn't know how to fill, and there is clearly a part of her that wants to go home, wherever that is. The problem with that is that she's happy here. She loves these people. She loves this home, the one that Dean has so carefully and painstakingly made for her, laying it all out before her, cracks and all, in a moment of rare, unabashed vulnerability. This is her life now. This is her family.

But there's a pull in her chest that is telling her - that has always been telling her - that it doesn't really matter what she wants. This is going to happen whether she likes it or not.

Sooner or later, she is going to have to go back.

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The bunker is huge.

It is seriously enormous. There's a kitchen, a library, a situation room, a shooting range, a training room, a whole bunch of bedrooms, and also there's a giant telescope. Not to mention there's probably several secret rooms they haven't discovered yet. It's a Batcave. There's no other way to say it.

Lydia loves it. She does. It is a million times better than that damn cabin in Montana that was small and cramped, freezing all the time, and kind of smelled like a giant fart. The bunker is way better. But sometimes the vastness of the place is seriously fucking annoying. One afternoon, while she is busy decorating her new room to her liking and trying to make it look presentable even without windows, she decides to take a much needed break to check on Dean and Sam. Just to see if they need any decorating tips.

...Okay, so she needs them to put together her new IKEA bookshelf, shut up.

They are nowhere to be found. She checks their rooms, the library, the kitchen, the situation room... She scowls as she makes her way to the shooting range and sends Dean a text that simply reads, _Marco_.

The response is quick, immediate: _polo. training room._

She is not at all expecting what she finds.

She enters the training room just in time to see Ruby royally kick their asses. She is wearing a tank top and yoga pants with her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, and Dean and Sam are both dressed in t-shirts and sweats. It is not a malicious fight. ...But it's a pretty fast one. Lydia walks in just in time to see Dean slam Ruby down onto the mat, quite hard it seems. Lydia jumps, startled by the brutality of it, but in the next instant, Ruby springs to her feet - just flips up like something straight out of Buffy - and lunges. Her movements are careless, almost lazy, even as Dean and Sam give it their all. At one point, Dean actually physically picks her up and _throws her_. She lands on her feet, with a considerable amount of grace, like a cat, and then she attacks.

The whole thing lasts exactly fifty five seconds and then Sam is on his back, Dean is face down, and Ruby is standing in between them, breathing heavily, small smile on her lips. ''And that wasn't even full strength.''

''Holy shit,'' Lydia says, and doesn't even realize she's spoken until Ruby sends her a wolfish grin.

''Is it weird that I'm turned on right now?'' Dean asks the mat that his face is currently mashed into. ''You're awesome.''

''Sweetie,'' Ruby laughs, cheerfully and freely. ''Of course I am.''

''Has anyone ever told you that you would probably make the world's best assassin?'' Sam questions. Then he sighs and says, ''I don't remember why we agreed to do this.''

Ruby is still laughing. Her eyes twinkle and meet Lydia's as she steps over Dean to get to her bottle of water waiting for her on the table. ''Oh, to be honest with you, boys,'' she says with a disappointed sigh. ''That was not a thrilling victory for me. It just made me sad inside. And incredibly embarrassed for you both.'' She takes a gulp of water and replaces the cap. When she moves to step over Dean again - who is, for some reason, still lying on the floor on his back - he pulls her legs out from under her, which sends her falling on top of him. He spins and quickly winds up on top of her, pinning her to the ground with his arm.

''Oh, gross,'' Sam moans, sounding pitiful, a bit like a child witnessing his parents make out. ''Don't do the foreplay thing. There is a child present.''

''Hey,'' Lydia squeaks, insulted.

''Rematch,'' Dean puffs out. ''Just you and me, Nikita.''

''Why?'' Ruby smirks. ''So I can beat your ass again?'' With an extraordinary lack of effort, she tosses Dean away, her eyes flashing black. ''I told you that you two needed weapons,'' she says over the sound of Dean's groaning. ''It's just not a fair fight otherwise.'' Then she does that Buffy-like flipping thing again - and _whoa_ , okay, Lydia seriously needs to learn how to do that.

''Do you think you could teach me how to do that?'' She asks, pushing off the doorframe.

Ruby, for a moment, looks apprehensively touched by the request. Her eyes seek out Dean as if she's asking for permission. ''Absolutely,'' she says, and her lips pull back into a smile with an intimidating amount of teeth. ''I can teach you a lot of things.''

''Shit,'' Dean snorts, accepting the hand that Sam offers him and finally heaving himself to his feet sluggishly. ''That's just what the world needs. Another Ruby.'' And then he pauses, wrinkles his nose and says, ''I can't decide whether or not that was sarcasm.''

Sam laughs and twists the cap off his own water bottle, handing Dean an unopened one.

But Lydia is not laughing, and neither is Ruby. There is sincerity in Ruby's eyes, a very careful, quiet kind of anticipation, and Lydia is biting the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. It is not the first opportunity Ruby has offered Lydia. There have been numerous opportunities, in fact. It's one of the constants. Ruby - perhaps because of Dean, or perhaps simply because she is more than meets the eye - has always _tried_ with Lydia. She has tried to be nice, to be welcoming, forgiving, and patient. Ruby likes Lydia, for reasons maybe no one understands. Lydia does not like Ruby. It's something that is practically ingrained in her mind, for reasons even she doesn't understand. She trusts Ruby with Dean's life and with Sam's, sometimes maybe with her own. But she doesn't _like_ her.

The demon thing is kind of hard to get past.

She's not sure why, considering the Winchester brothers have somehow managed to get past it.

''What...'' She clears her throat and wets her lips. ''What kind of things?''

Ruby doesn't even hesitate. ''Well, for starters, you're a very capable young woman - capable of saving yourself, saving others - and Dean has done a great job teaching you how to stay alive - ''

Lydia flings a look in Dean's direction, fascinated by the oddly bashful look of pride in his eyes.

''- But the style of combat you've been taught is disorganized and reckless. It's half cocked. It's a Winchester method.''

''Um,'' Sam tilts his head to the side. '' _Rude_.''

Dean makes an offended noise in the back of his throat and scowls.

''There are too many variables,'' Ruby shrugs.

Lydia crosses her arms. ''And you think you can do better?''

''No. I _know_ I can do better. Kid - ''

''Don't call me kid.''

'' - Kid, if you give me some time, I can turn you into the freaking Black Widow.''

''I really, really believe that,'' says Sam.

''Oh, man,'' Dean rakes a hand through his hair. ''This day has taken a turn I'm not sure I'm on board with.''

''Go get changed,'' Ruby grins at Lydia. ''We'll start in ten minutes.'' Then, to Dean, she says, ''Hop on the train or get off the tracks.''

Lydia opens her mouth to say something, but no words come out. She had not been expecting that.

Dean's jaw ticks. ''Ruby, she's just a kid, you know.''

''I'm not just a kid,'' Lydia tries.

''Yeah, she's a kid who's in mortal peril pretty much 24/7,'' Ruby scoffs. ''She's hardly the delicate flower you make her out to be.'' She rolls her eyes at the look Dean sends her, but softens and lowers her voice. ''Do you want her to be a kid, Dean? Or do you want her to survive?''

He looks incredibly conflicted. Lydia would like to point out that this isn't really about him.

''I don't think you're gonna win this one, man,'' Sam pipes up, clapping a hand down on Dean's shoulder. ''Ruby's got her determined face on. You know what happens when she's got her determined face on. She'll kill you with her thighs and tell me, is that really the way you want to go out?''

Dean sags against the table in defeat, arms folded. He tries for humor. ''I don't know. I think I'd be okay with it. Have you ever been between her thighs? It's a pretty fucking awesome place to be.'' Both Sam and Lydia let out matching groans of disgust. Ruby's lips tip up into a fleeting smile. Dean pushes off the table and moves swiftly over to Lydia. ''Are you sure about this?'' He asks lowly.

''I'm sure,'' she says, eyes steely and focused. She looks over his shoulder at Ruby. ''I want to learn.''

''Because if you think I was a tough teacher, you have no idea what you're getting into,'' Dean adds. ''I've seen her train people. It's brutal. You _will_ puke.''

''Dean,'' Lydia says firmly. ''This is my choice. I'm sure.''

He audibly sucks in a breath. But he nods. He turns to Ruby. ''If anything - and I mean anything - happens to her, you and I will be done for.''

''I don't think your dick is as magical as you think it is,'' Ruby quips. ''I'd survive.'' But the five second look they share is serious and full of wordless understanding.

Lydia leaves the room to go get changed with a spring in her step. She has no idea what she's getting herself into, but she's excited anyway. It's not something she broadcasts, especially not to Dean and Sam, but sometimes she feels very weak in her skin. There are so many things in her life that she can't control, so many bad things happen, so many things hurt, and she can put up a facade, a wall, but she doesn't have a whole lot of power to fight back against most of these things. She's a good hunter, but she's still a novice, Purgatory or no Purgatory, and sometimes she can't help but feel like a damsel. Which is unacceptable.

She should have more power, more control over her life than she does. Sometimes she feels like that was taken away along with her memories. As much as they try, Dean and Sam can't ever understand that. They can't even begin to understand how horrible it feels to have who you are systematically stripped away, to have your voice, your ability to fight back, taken away. And they can't possibly understand how amazing it feels to finally be able to _take_ that ability back.

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Dean brings Lydia home from the hospital on a Friday afternoon.

She's complaining nonstop about the awful water pressure in the shower at the hospital and how she can't wait to get out of these baggy sweatpants and into something fashionable. He still doesn't understand why she puts so much effort into her appearance when she doesn't need to, but that's Lydia. He figures it's not for him to understand. She is talking nonstop, mostly complaints about her stint in the hospital, and Dean is listening intently to each and every one of her complaints, holding tightly to her hand as he leads her down the steps and into the bunker because she's not really paying attention to what she's doing, far too busy moaning about that one super fucking rude nurse (which, actually, yeah, she's one hundred percent right about that) and how jello is an unnerving food. He can see Sam, Ruby and Kevin all sitting at the table. Ruby is reading something over Sam's shoulder, talking quietly into his ear, and Kevin looks tired, massaging his temples. When he sees Lydia, however, his entire face lights up like a kid in a candy store, an excited, boyish grin crossing his face.

When Lydia sees Kevin...

''Oh my god!'' She shrieks and dives behind Dean, hiding herself from view. ''Kevin! Cover your eyes!''

''What?'' Startled, Kevin does exactly that, slapping his hands over his eyes. ''Why?''

''You can't see me like this!''

''For the love of fuck,'' Dean snipes, but remains still so Lydia can hide behind him.

''I'm all gross,'' Lydia says. ''My hair is a rat's nest and I'm wearing sweats. _Sweats_ , Kevin.''

''The horror,'' Ruby monotones.

''I don't care about that,'' Kevin insists.

''Okay, well, I do,'' Lydia peeks out from behind Dean's shoulder.

''But...'' Kevin inches forward. Instead of facing Lydia, which is probably what he thinks he's doing, Kevin is mostly talking to Dean. ''I think you're beautiful all the time,'' he says. To Dean.

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and mouths, ''Fuck my life,'' over Kevin's shoulder.

''I know you do,'' Lydia says primly. ''Because you're very good at your job as my boyfriend - ''

Kevin nods enthusiastically.

Dean wrinkles his nose in disgust and chokes back a grimace.

'' - But we're not at the going to the bathroom with the door open stage yet, okay?''

''...I'm really uncomfortable right now,'' Dean says.

''This is still not the weirdest thing they've ever done,'' Ruby says, looking back and forth between Kevin, still with his hands over his eyes, and Lydia, still hiding behind Dean. ''One time I walked in on them playing a game of human chess.''

''I hope that's not anything like the human centipede,'' Sam says, without even looking up.

Kevin makes a distressed mewling noise.

''Oh, god,'' Dean gags, pressing a closed fist to his mouth. ''Those are not images I needed.''

''I don't know what that is,'' Lydia muses. ''Should I?''

There's a chorus of voices, ''No.''

''Okay, look,'' Lydia blows out a breath. ''Ruby. Do you agree with me? Would you want your significant other to see you - ''

''Sweetie, in my relationship,'' Ruby leans back in her chair and props her feet up on the table. ''We are at the point of going to the bathroom with the door open. I could look like a pile of steaming dog shit and I would still be worshipped, because these assholes realize how lucky they are to have me. Besides,'' she scoffs. ''We're mature adults. So. There's the difference.''

Sam slowly looks up from his computer screen to give Ruby a truly incredulous look. ''I'm sorry,'' he says eventually, after she has shot him a nasty looking scowl. ''I'm just having a lot of sitcom like flashbacks of drunken table dancing, games of strip Twister, bouncy castles, and that one time you and Dean did an elaborate karaoke performance of If I Were a Carpenter that made Bobby cry.''

Kevin turns around to send an odd look in Ruby's direction, which basically means pointing his face in the direction that he believes Ruby is in because his hands are still over his eyes.

''Um,'' says Lydia.

''Don't worry,'' Sam waves it off. ''I'll show you the video later.''

Lydia nods, satisfied, and giggles into Dean's shoulder. ''Bouncy castles?'' She asks.

Unashamed, all Dean does is shrug. ''It was my birthday.''

''I threw up in the bouncy castle,'' Sam says lightly.

''That's not something to be proud of, Sam,'' Ruby snaps. Under her breath, she tacks on, ''Grown ass man can't even wait fifteen fucking minutes after scarfing down four fucking hot dogs.''

Lydia shakes her head. ''What even is your life?''

''And once again,'' Kevin tells the empty chair he's facing. ''I have been struck by the sudden, very overwhelming feeling that I am going to die. Because these are the people protecting me. My bodyguards are giant five year olds. And I am going to die.''

''Most likely,'' Ruby agrees.

''We should get another bouncy castle,'' Dean muses.

''No way,'' Lydia says firmly. ''You'll throw your back out. Or break a hip.''

''How old do you think I am?''

''Old enough to know better.''

''Okay, you know what? Go change.''

Lydia snickers, but kisses his cheek before she bounds away to go change into something she deems acceptable. ''When I get back,'' she calls over her shoulder, ''we'll make out!''

''Cool,'' Kevin bobs his head up and down, goofy looking smile on his face. ''Cool, cool, cool.''

Ruby glances at him. ''Boy, I hope she was talking to you.''

Dean makes another face. ''Still think she's too young to be _making out_.''

''She's eighteen, Dean,'' Sam says patiently, because this is not the first time he's had to say this.

''Yeah, well, she's...'' Dean trails off, unable to finish that sentence intelligently. ''...Very short.''

Sam stares at him. And then looks back at his computer screen, apparently deciding it's not worth it.

Dean waits a second, just to be sure Lydia's gone, and then he strolls over to his brother. ''Did you do it?''

''Mmmhmm. It should be here within two to four weeks.''

Ruby leans across the table to yank Kevin's hands away from his eyes. ''What should be here?''

Dean glances over his shoulder. ''I bought Lydia a laptop.''

''About time, too,'' Sam grumbles. ''She's brutal when she's bored. Did you guys know that I know how to do the Single Ladies dance?''

''No, but I'm definitely going to file that away for later blackmail purposes,'' Dean says, peeling off his jacket and tossing it over the back of a chair.

''One day, she got bored, so she taught herself the Single Ladies dance, and then she forced me to learn it. I did _not_ need to know how to do the Single Ladies dance, Dean.''

Dean snorts. He snatches Sam's glass off the table and sniffs at the dark liquid suspiciously. When Sam mumbles that it's just soda, he takes a swig of it. ''You think that's bad, dude? Do you have any idea what she makes me do when she's bored? Shopping. Hours of it. Three hours sitting in a boutique while she hems and haws over dresses is far from my ideal afternoon.''

''Liar,'' Ruby coughs.

''I don't know,'' Kevin pipes up. ''I think I'm okay with the things she makes me do when she's bored.''

Everybody stops what they're doing to stare at him. There's a beat of tense silence, in which everyone waits for the inevitable, and then Dean lunges at the poor boy. Kevin shrieks and flails dramatically, slipping off his chair and onto the floor. Sam's on his feet in an instant, inserting himself between Dean and Kevin, pushing back at Dean's chest. ''Whoa, hey, Dean. Calm down. Look, just...'' He attempts to tip the glass to Dean's lips. ''Drink your soda. Have some sugar. It's - It's calming.'' He eyes the death grip Dean has on the glass. ''Don't break it, though.''

''I didn't mean sex!'' Kevin yelps. ''There's nothing - I didn't mean anything sexual! There's nothing sexual about our relationship yet, because - because Lydia was seventeen and I'm twenty and that would be... And she's been in the hospital. So it's not like...'' His cheeks are beet red. ''We certainly have not had any sort of sexual encounter.''

''Honey,'' Ruby says loudly. ''Honey, just stop.''

Kevin scrambles to his feet and moves as far away from Dean as possible, strategically placing himself right behind Ruby, the clever little bastard. Dean narrows his eyes suspiciously, but does not throttle the kid. ''I'm watching you,'' he warns, and takes another gulp of soda. ''And also, is this diet?'' He glares at Sam. ''What's wrong with you?''

''Okay,'' Sam's voice is booming. ''So, hey, I vote we change the subject before Dean murders Kevin.''

''I'm pregnant,'' Ruby says plainly. ''And it's Kevin's.''

Dean drops the glass. It shatters upon impact, sending soda splashing all over the floor.

''What?!'' Kevin yelps. '' _What?!_ No!'' He shakes his head frantically. ''That is not true!''

Sam sighs and stares down at the spilled soda and broken glass with a pout. ''You know what, Kev? Why don't you just run away, okay?''

Kevin decides to, for once, willingly listen to them.

''Oh, come on,'' Ruby scoffs, while Kevin flees. ''I'm kidding. Of course I'm kidding.'' Just when Dean starts to relax a little, she leans forward, meets his eyes and says, ''It's actually yours.''

Dean's heart rate is currently out of control. His eyes are big and round, there's a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, and when he opens his mouth to say something, all that comes out is a strange sounding squeak. On some level, he's aware of what she's doing. But still.

''Sorry,'' says Ruby, although she doesn't sound even the least bit sorry. ''I thought I'd continue the 'let's give Dean a stroke' theme we had going on. I liked it. I thought it was fun. Good times.''

Dean says nothing and continues to stare at her, eyes big, mouth hanging open.

''Dean?'' Sam snaps his fingers. He leans in closer with a frown. ''I, uh, I think you broke him, Rubes.''

''Hmm, wouldn't it be nice if he was like this all the time?'' But then she takes pity on him. ''Dean, seriously, I was kidding. If I were carrying your child, do you really think I would choose to announce it like that?''

''Yes,'' Dean says, with a sharp exhale of breath.

''Okay, point, but I'm not pregnant.''

''You're sure?''

''Yes. Why? Did I get your hopes up a little?''

''What? No!'' It comes out perhaps a little too loudly, and the snort that accompanies it is maybe a little too fake. ''Shut up,'' he growls, glowering down at them and their smirky faces. ''Jesus,'' he grunts, dragging a hand over his exhausted face. ''Know what? I really need to get some sleep. I've been sleepin' in a fuckin' hospital cot for the past couple of days. Wake me when - '' He stops abruptly and looks at the two of them. ''...Actually, don't wake me at all. In fact, if you,'' he points at Sam, ''come into my room at all, I can't be held accountable for my actions. And you,'' he points at Ruby. ''...I realize that I can't tell you to do anything, but please, not unless it's a life or death emergency.''

She gives him a mock salute. ''Aye, aye, Captain.''

''No waking Sleeping Beauty,'' Sam nods. ''Got it.''

Dean figures it's good enough.

He feels like a walking zombie. He knows he has no right to complain, considering he wasn't actually the one sick and in the hospital, but at least Lydia got to get some sleep at night. He tried to sleep, and most of the nurses did everything they could to make ''the worried dad in room 215'' comfortable, but the cot was too small and too hard, and he spent most of his time watching Lydia sleep anyway. Just in case, you know. He hasn't slept for more than thirty five minutes in seventy two hours. He feels blurred. He feels cranky and out of sorts, like any little thing could have the power to snap him right in half. When his bedroom door is in view, he feels giddy. He actually feels giddy, because he knows that there is a memory foam mattress and a fluffy comforter waiting for him behind that door. He could sleep for days, that's how tired he is. As it is, he'll probably get an hour or two and then he'll have to drag himself out of bed to make the kids dinner because Sam will just wind up making them peanut butter sandwiches (not even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just _peanut butter_ ) and Ruby...won't do anything, except maybe give them money for pizza, and even then it probably wouldn't be her money.

Dean opens the door and stifles a yawn as he steps into the darkened bedroom. He gropes around for the lamp and simultaneously starts to strip off his flannel shirt. His fingers finally find the lamp and he breathes a sigh of relief, switching it on. The warm light pours into the room, illuminating everything. Including the man in the trench coat perched on the edge of the bed, staring down at his hands. Dean freezes. His whole body goes ramrod straight and when he sucks in a started breath of air, it doesn't reach his lungs. Everything he had planned for this very moment, all the questions, the speeches, they get lost somewhere in between his bones, and he is left standing there speechless, staring. Dean's eyes follow the fluid movements of the man on the bed, watching as he rises to his feet, all sad eyes that are pleading for forgiveness and fleeting broken smiles.

''Hello, Dean,'' says Castiel.

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_let me tell you who you really are_   
_you're my comfort_   
_you're not a superstar_   
**\- chantal kreviazuk; in this life**

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	6. i'm your lionheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ''What makes a hero?'' He has asking, and she can hear the words Heroes & Villains scrawled on the outdated chalkboard. ''Heroes and heroines have been staples of the literary world since the literary world began,'' he's saying. ''Even as the times change and reader's tastes changes, the call for heroes is still loud and clear. Almost every book ever written has a hero. Why is that? What is it that makes someone a hero? What is that singular ingredient that every hero has?''
> 
> One girl says, ''Good looks.''
> 
> A boy in the back says, ''A cape.''
> 
> Lydia, hovering in the doorway, unseen, blurts it out before she can stop herself, ''Tragedy.''

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. You have no idea. I don't know what happened. I went through a painful break up with SPN this year so that probably had something to do with it, but that's no excuse. I took a break, then I took a longer break, and then suddenly it was summer of 2014 and I hadn't updated in forever and I am just...so unbelievably sorry.
> 
> But I'm here now.
> 
> Please forgive me. :)

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_and in the sea that's painted black_  
 _creatures lurk below the deck_  
 _but you're a king and i'm a lionheart_   
**\- of monsters and men; king and lionheart**

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As soon as they officially move into the bunker, Dean starts looking at nearby schools for Lydia. Correction: Dean starts _obsessively_ looking at nearby schools for Lydia.

For about two weeks, while they're getting acquainted with the bunker, he is like a man on a mission, making phone calls and doing research and disappearing at random times during the day to go drive by the schools like he's casing them, deciding which one would be safer. It is Lydia who eventually has to break the news to him that enrolling her in any school - especially a private school, which he has decided is the best idea - is not something that is feasible right now. He looks crestfallen, shoulders slumping in defeat, excitement draining out of his eyes. His fingers are still curled protectively around the stack of papers, fresh from the printer, that he had been so excited to show her. They're full of information on local private schools and there's a highlighter in his mouth, ready to highlight fascinating courses and tuition fees that they could never afford in a million years.

But he accepts it. Or at least he stops actively talking about it. She's quite certain he's still planning something for some time.

Dean neatly tucks the dream away in his new room, behind the books he acts like he doesn't read and the typewriter he pretends he doesn't use, but before he does, he makes one last ditch effort to give her a slice of normalcy. It goes... About the way you'd expect for them.

There may or may not be shenanigans.

Because, you see, while Dean is off trying to carve out just a little bit of a real life for her, Lydia is trying to reclaim her agency and fix what has been broken inside of her. Contrary to what some people believe, she does know how to live. Her mind, her memories, her life has been tampered with, yes, but she hasn't forgotten what life is in general. She doesn't remember her family or her friends or where she came from; she doesn't know if she's ever been in love or what her tastes her regarding fashion, literature, music and entertainment.

But she knows all of the holidays.

She knows all of the different types of religions, she knows the periodic table of elements, and she knows that recycling is good for the earth. She recognizes the Kardashians on the television, their names bleeding into her memory, maybe from a life of flipping through tabloids, and when she hears a familiar song playing on the radio, she knows that it's a Daughter song, perhaps telling her she was a fan. She starts watching The OC on Netflix and it takes her an entire season to realize that there are lines of dialogue that she seems to know by heart and when she gets to the part where Marissa dies at the end of the third season, it takes her a full day to realize that the reason she is not shocked and saddened by the plot twist is because somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that it was going to happen.

With that said, there is a lot she doesn't know as well.

She doesn't know she's allergic to shellfish until she wakes up on the sticky floor of the Red Lobster that she forced Dean and Sam to take her to with paramedics hovering over her. She doesn't realize that things such as Advil, Tylenol and aspirin exist until Dean presses an Advil into her palm when she gets a headache after reading in the car and says, ''For the pain.'' The first time she gets her period after coming home from Purgatory and it's human condition suppressing environment, she panics and comes this close to demanding Dean take her to the hospital because obviously her body is literally falling apart and she's dying before she remembers, ''oh, yeah, this is normal.'' (And thank God she remembers before she tells Dean, because that would have been one hell of an awkward and embarrassing conversation.) And she has absolutely zero knowledge of what high school is like. 

She is a mess of instinctively knowing some things and re-learning most. So maybe that's why she ends up agreeing to this. Maybe it's not about just getting him to _shut up about school already, Dean_.

Maybe it's just about _re-learning._

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See, one day, a few days before she has to sit him down and tell him that school isn't an option right now, Lydia reluctantly accompanies Dean to the local public high school.

They get a tour, meet a teacher or two, and she sits fidgeting in a chair in the principal's office with her eyes narrowed as the principal goes on and on about the extracurricular activities they offer, all the while shooting disapproving looks at Dean and his ripped jeans and Lydia and her short skirt because they were ''not what she was expecting'' and also because ''my, isn't that an interesting skirt, dear.'' After about twenty minutes of the principal blabbering about things like AP classes and clubs and the dress code (which she mentions with a pointed glance at Lydia's bare legs), Lydia is asked to go wait outside while the principal talks to ''her father.''

Which she does, thank you very much. She sits outside the office silently and awkwardly, trying very hard not to notice the way the school secretary keeps looking at her with half assed cheerful smiles. But there is an unfortunate kind of discomfort that comes along with just being inside a school. Part of it is simply because she has no memories of being inside a school and she has no idea how she's supposed to act or what she's supposed to do, but there's something else as well. Something that feels familiar. Like a mix of dread and boredom and fear. She sits there for as long as she can, doing her best to be still, biting her tongue and idly scratching at her wrist, which itches horribly for some reason, and then she just can't do it anymore.

She jumps to her feet, hooks her purse on her wrist, and says to the secretary, ''Can you please tell my, um, dad that I'm going to wait for him outside?'' She escapes before she even gets a nod in response.

She doesn't go outside. Instead, she heads down the empty hallway, the click of her heels echoing through the hall. The principal's office is on the second floor of the school and in an effort to get as far away as possible from Principal Dress Code, she heads downstairs to the main hallway. It's a strange feeling. To be standing in a high school. She assumes that she has been in a school before and she assumes that, in her old life, whatever kind of life that was, she probably knew her place at school. She probably knew what to do. She has no idea what to do here. She moves slowly, brushing her fingertips over the cool metal of the lockers as she goes, humming The Beatles under her breath.

She drifts aimlessly until she gets to the trophy case, and then she stops. She tilts her head to the side and presses her fingers against the cool glass, leaning in close to survey the names and faces of all the past school champions. She wonders, idly, what happened to them. What becomes of the high school heroes? Where are they now? She leans down, hair falling in her face, to look at all of the faces in the pictures, smiling and proud. She can't help but wonder if she was ever like those smiling faces. Is her face in some school's trophy case? Is her smile haunting some hallway somewhere? Was she a high school hero? Did she, once upon a time, know what she was doing here?

Lydia stands straight and folds her arms over her chest, still staring blankly at all the trophies and memories.

It is only when she hears the word ''hero'' drift down the hallway to her that she moves. She follows the voice, heels clicking, and soon finds herself standing in the open doorway of what looks to be an English class. Her heart constricts and her mouth dries when she sees the sea of kids her own age, a surge of anxiety flooding through her, but the question the teacher is asking his class is too fascinating to pass up on.

''What makes a hero?'' He is asking, and she can hear the words _Heroes & Villains_ scrawled on the outdated chalkboard. ''Heroes and heroines have been staples of the literary world since the literary world began,'' he's saying. ''Even as the times change and reader's tastes changes, the call for heroes is still loud and clear. Almost every book ever written has a hero. Why is that? What is it that makes someone a hero? What is that singular ingredient that every hero has? _Is_ there a singular ingredient?''

One girl says, ''Good looks.''

A boy in the back says, ''A cape.''

Lydia, hovering in the doorway, unseen, blurts it out before she can stop herself, ''Tragedy.''

Every eye in the room swings over to her and she instantly regrets opening her mouth. She's not entirely sure why. She is not a shy person, that is one thing that she knows. It's just that these are all teenagers. People her own age. She's hasn't really been around people her own age. She has no idea how to relate to them. And from what she's seen on TV, teenagers are really only good for one thing: Creating drama.

The teacher - early forties, kind of handsome actually - doesn't seem to sense any of her nerves. He grins and leans back against his desk. ''Tragedy,'' he echoes, hugging his copy of Les Miserables to his chest. ''Interesting. Care to elaborate, Miss...?''

''Lydia,'' she says, and has no idea why she's still talking. ''Lydia Martin. And I...'' She should go. She should apologize for disrupting class, go find Dean and get the hell out of here. She doesn't do any of that. ''Heroes and tragedies go hand in hand,'' she says confidently, chin up, avoiding the gazes of the teens and focusing only on the teacher. ''Often times, they're born from it. It's why they're heroes in the first place. Because someone killed their family or their love or whatever. Tragedy and guilt and loss. Those are the things that every hero has. I mean, just look at Batman, right?'' There are a few chuckles from the class. Lydia barely hears it. She shrugs. ''It's like what F. Scott Fitzgerald said: Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.''

The teacher - the name plate on his desk reads, Mr. Harper - is still grinning.

''Personally,'' she tosses her mane of fire over her shoulder. ''I find the whole concept of heroes and heroines to be a bit played out.''

Mr. Harper raises his eyebrows, looking intrigued. He pushes off the desk and places the book back on the desk. ''Really? What makes you say that?''

She shrugs. ''Writers pile so much hurt and suffering onto these men and women that by the end of the book or movie or _whatever_ , you're so emotionally exhausted for the character and their plight that you start thinking that maybe the only happy ending that exists for them is death. At least then they would be free of it all and be able to rest. Which strikes me as amazingly, unnecessarily grim,'' she wrinkles her nose. ''Nobody wants to root for a beloved character to die. But with heroes...'' She pauses and looks down at the dirty, dusty floor, licking her lips. ''Heroism hurts,'' she states boldly, lifting her head, chin up, eyes wide. ''It's nothing but pain and misery, not only for the heroes, but for the people around them. And, quite frankly, life is depressing enough without having to feel so deeply for someone fictional.'' As soon as she's done, she becomes painfully aware that the entire class is staring at her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices one girl lean over to her friend and whisper something in her ear. The two girls dissolve into quiet giggles and snickers. Lydia startles herself by not giving a single fuck. Her cheeks don't heat up in embarrassment and she doesn't narrow her eyes. Instead, her red painted lips quirk up into a half smile and she feels a twinge of pride in her chest that has her breathing speeding up quite pleasantly. She levels the girls with an even stare until they notice her and doesn't stop staring until their smiles waver and they focus their attention back to the front of the class.

Mr. Harper laughs, not unkindly. ''You make a fascinating point, Ms. Martin. Please,'' he gestures towards an empty desk at the front of the class. ''Take a seat. I'd love to hear your opinions on villains.''

Lydia freezes in the doorway. She opens her mouth to protest, to say that maybe she shouldn't - and she knows she shouldn't; she should go back to Dean. She should go home. This isn't her life. She doesn't have time for this to be her life. But she doesn't say that. She doesn't say any of that. She hurries farther into the classroom, heels clicking, and she takes a seat. She fits at the desk, one leg crossed over the other, eyes to the front, in a way she didn't expect she would. The girls start up again, whispering and smirking, and a few of the boys keep sending her bare legs hungry looks, but she doesn't care. They are not of import in the slightest. She keeps her eyes on Mr. Harper and listens to him talk about villains, words already forming in her head.

She could belong here. In this world. This normal life. She could _rule_ this life.

She spends the rest of the class participating more than any of the other students in the class. She raises her hand, answers literary questions she didn't know she had the answer to, and debates with another student over the difference between an anti-hero and a villain. She enjoys herself. By the time the bell rings, she doesn't want the class to ever end. Only when she sees Dean hovering in the doorway, looking awkward as teenagers rush past him, does she snaps out of it.

Lydia gets to her feet slowly, looking around the room wistfully. This is not her life. She does not belong here. ''So, Ms. Martin,'' Mr. Harper says her name before she can slip out the door and she stops in her tracks. Dean has fought his way through a swarm of teenagers eager to get to lunch and is converging on Lydia. Undoubtedly, a conversation will be struck up between him and Mr. Harper. She has no escape. ''Is today your first day?'' Mr. Harper asks.

''Oh, uh, no,'' Lydia smoothes down her dress so she has something to do with her hands. ''I'm not actually a student here.''

''But she might be,'' Dean says, coming to stand next to her. ''Soon.''

Lydia clenches her fists until her nails dig into the palm of her hand. ''Um, Mr. Harper, this is Dean.''

''Dad,'' Dean corrects.

She blinks up at him. ''What?''

''My name is _Dad_ ,'' he stresses.

She stares at him, wrinkles her nose, and waits for him to realize what he's just said. He doesn't. Of _course_. ''Right,'' she turns back to Mr. Harper. ''This is my dad, Dean.''

''We're new to the area,'' Dean says.

''Well, we'd certainly be lucky to have you,'' Mr. Harper tells Lydia. Then, to Dean, with an odd sort of knowing smile, ''You've got a clever girl there, dad.''

Dean looks like a proud soccer dad.

''I hope to see you in my class one day, Ms. Martin,'' Mr. Harper says, offering them one last smile. He excuses himself and, as he's passing, places a hand on Dean's shoulder. It might just be Lydia's imagination but the smile Mr. Harper gives Dean as he's passing by is, um... Lydia suspects Mr. Harper might think Dean is something of a DILF. Dean, for his part, glances after him and then immediately tries to pretend he didn't.

Lydia would normally comment on this, but she's too preoccupied with her discomfort. Any sort of belonging she had felt is long gone now. All she feels is uncomfortable and she wants out as soon as possible. ''Can we go now?'' She asks, folding her arms and trying to make her voice sound impatient rather than shaky.

''You don't want to sit in on a math class?''

''Dean.''

''What about biology?''

''Dean!'' It comes out high pitched and shrill and seems to startle him, but she doesn't care. She needs to get out. She scratches at the inside of her wrist and looks over her shoulder. She swallows hard. ''I just...want to go, okay? Please?''

He seems to realize that she is not to be toyed with right now, because he agrees surprisingly quickly, nodding once and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

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''You could have this, you know,'' Dean tells her. ''I want you to have this.''

Lydia rolls her eyes, still absently scratching at her wrist. He's sweet, and his willingness to give her a life so normal it's like something straight out of a Normal Rockwell painting is both admirable and adorable. It's also entirely unnecessary.

Sure, it would be easy enough to pretend. She could call him dad, bicker with him about eating healthy, go to school, get good grades, make friends, make the honor roll, graduate at the top of her class and go on to some ivy league university with a full ride scholarship. She'd tell her classmates all about her single father, who makes cookies for the bake sales, picks her up every day after school, and maybe flirts a little too much with her English teacher. She'd be just like any other girl her age.

But it would be a lie.

She's not like any other girl her age, they are not normal people, she doesn't belong here, and he is not her father.

''I don't,'' she says plainly. She pulls up the sleeve of her sweater to scratch at her bare skin. ''I don't want any of this, Dean,'' she says. ''I don't belong here. It would never work.''

''We could make it work,'' he protests.

''How could we possibly make it work?'' She snaps, whipping her head around to face him and fixing him with a steely glare. ''We're on the road half the time.''

''You could stay here while we're - ''

She scoffs. ''Like I'd let you two idiots go off on your own. Everyone knows you two need constant supervision.''

''Lydia - ''

'' _Look_ ,'' she heaves a sigh. ''Just because we have a home base now doesn't mean anything is different. It doesn't mean we're settling down and it sure as hell doesn't mean you get to push me out of this life. We're never going to be normal. You're never going to be a stay at home dad - and don't lie to me, it's pretty clear that's your dream job, you big dork - and I'm never going to be a regular teenage girl. We're still hunters. That's just the way it is, Dean. Okay? So, this school thing? It's never going to happen. Now.'' She crosses one leg over the other delicately. ''Can we please go?'' She flicks her hair over her shoulder and folds her arms, turning her nose up and staring out the window. ''I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I don't want to be here.''

When she risks a glance at him, she expects him to be all sad puppy dog eyes and long, wistful looks in the direction of the apple pie life he'll never have. He mostly looks annoyed, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed slightly. He grunts, mutters something under his breath - something that sounds suspiciously like ''kids these days'' - and then he turns the ignition.

Without warning, the Impala screeches away from the curb so fast it makes her gasp and clutch at the dashboard. She sends him a withering glare in response. ''Ass,'' she grumbles. Then, mostly just to aggravate him even further (if he wants an annoying teenager, she can be an annoying teenager), she says, crisply, ''So, are you going to buy me lunch or what?''

He doesn't even try to fight her demands. A little disappointing, to be honest. ''Fine.''

''Great! Also, I need new sho - ''

''You do not need shoes.''

''Excuse me,'' she bites out, arms still crossed over her chest. ''But I seem to recall _someone_ promising me a new pair of boots after _someone_ got me pushed into a disgusting _swamp_ by a _swamp monster_ \- because _swamp monsters_ are apparently real things - which _ruined_ my favourite pair.''

''You have enough shoes. Jesus.''

''False,'' she points a finger at him. ''One can never have enough shoes.''

''What happened to your wrist?''

She opens her mouth to retort, then pauses. ''What?'' She looks down at her arm. Sure enough, there is a burn on the inside of her wrist, right where she has been scratching. It doesn't look serious. It's just a small burn. Like she had accidentally brushed her wrist against a heater or something. It doesn't even hurt. It just...itches. Still, it makes her breath catch and her stomach drop. She doesn't remember how she got it. Was it from this morning, when she was making her tea? She doesn't remember. She swallows hard. ''Oh. That,'' she waves it off. ''It's nothing. Don't worry about it.''

He looks like he's worrying about it. She doesn't expect him to let it go. She stubbed her toe once and he wanted to take her to the hospital. Maybe it's the look on her face, the one that says she doesn't want to talk about it, or maybe he's just moving on from his helicopter dad stage, but he doesn't pester her about the burn. He just asks her where she wants to go to eat and reluctantly agrees to take her shopping.

Which is good.

If he hadn't let it go, she would've had to have told him about the burn on the small of her back. Not that it matters anyway. It's probably nothing. It's definitely nothing. She just needs to be more careful around hot things.

That's all.

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_and as the world comes to an end_  
 _i'll be here to hold your hand_  
 _'cause you're my king and i'm your lionheart_   
**\- of monsters and men; king and lionheart**

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... 
> 
> This is more of a scene from a chapter rather than an actual chapter, but I've been working on this chapter since June (the part that was supposed to come after this scene is proving to be extraordinarily hard to write and incredibly emotional) and I really just wanted to let you all know that this story is going to go on.
> 
> Yes, the updates are going to be slow (I'm going to be starting a new job within the next few months) but I have not and will not give up on this story. It's my baby.

**Author's Note:**

> And we're off!
> 
> \- The peppy pop song Lydia and the Winchesters danced to in the beginning was Where the Kids Are by Blondfire.
> 
> \- I'm pretty much in love with New Orleans, and I know that the force is strong in that town (there are, for whatever reason, a lot of supernatural happenings in that town - witchcraft, voodoo, ghosts, vampires, other assorted creatures) and I started thinking... If there were still a lot of witches and practitioners in New Orleans then a hunter could always find something to hunt (whether they should be hunted or not) and then I thought, well, why the heck would trigger happy hunters ever be allowed into New Orleans? (Yes, I'm one of those weirdos who does not like the black and white-ness of Supernatural. ''Monsters'' are people, too.)
> 
> \- Yes, the Ruby in this story is Katie!Ruby and no, this Ruby never betrayed the boys and has been loyal to them and their cause for seven years, so she's still popping up and saving their lives. In the headcanon for this story (actually, in my headcanon in general) the woman who betrayed them and got Sam all addicted to demon blood was someone else entirely.
> 
> \- And yeah, if you're picking up Julia/Ruby vibes, that is also a thing that happened at some point.
> 
> \- Title of the story is from the poem ''Girl'' by Lisa Zaran.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own none of the characters you recognize nor any of the songs featured in this story.


End file.
